Home For the Holidays
by chemqueen
Summary: Audrey McKenzie hates Bruce Wayne's guts . . . and his money. But when the billionaire gets engaged to the bleedingheart's model sister, they're forced to spend Christmas together. Will they kill each other or will they fall in love? DISCONTINUED
1. And So the Holiday Begins

**A/N:** I love Christmas. I LOVE Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza, hell, whatever you celebrate during winter break, I love it. So, I have decided to merge my favorite movie (_Batman Begins_) with my favorite holiday, with my favorite OC, who has never been introduced to paper (as you might guess, this is Audrey McKenzie).

So . . . please, just read the first chapter. If you don't like it, it will get better, I promise. Review anyway. I have no problem with flames.

And if you like it – well, it'll get better, and you can like it even more!

Without further crazy ramblings:

_Home for the Holidays_

Chapter One: So the Holiday Begins . . .

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"Good morning, Mr. Wayne. I hope I'm not disturbing you."

The female voice trickling through the antique gold and white phone sounded nervous and a little on edge.

"Of course not, Jessica. What's the matter?" He rubbed his eyes with a weary hand, and shot a look at the matching clock on the bedside table.

"Well, Mr. Wayne, your phone messages have been accumulating, and I know that you usually don't come into the office on Saturdays, so I thought it best to call you. The most recent of these calls have insisted that it is vital that y—" The nervous voice of Lucius Fox's secretary was cut off.

"How many messages do I have, Jessica?"

"Sixty-five, Mr. Wayne. Fifty-five yesterday and ten as of this morning." A phone warbled in the background, and there was a short pause. "Make that sixty-six, sir."

He sighed. "Who's left sixty-six messages for me?"

"Well, sir, all of them are from Audrey McKenzie's office."

"Who?"

"I believe that you and Mr. Fox met with her in association with the Hatford Fund concerning the train station . . . and the turtles."

"Ah . . . yes. The turtles which are apparently going to be destroyed by the train station we're building."

"Yes, Miss McKenzie, the Hatford Fund's lawyer."

"Dammit. Did she mention what she wanted?" Eleven in the morning. He and Fox had met her two days earlier and she had already left sixty-six messages? Again he heard the trilling phone; sixty-seven messages.

"Well, sir, she did mention that your decision concerning the . . . turtles . . . was unfair, and that she would like to make another appointment." Jessica paused uneasily.

"Spit it out," he said.

"Miss McKenzie became ruder in her latter messages, sir. I believe that she is becoming annoyed that you have yet to call her back. She has pointed out that her employer has numerous backed the decisions that Wayne Enterprises has made—"

"The Hatford Fund is made up of a few rich bleeding-hearts, Jessica. Does Wayne Enterprises need their support?"

"Well, no, sir."

"Thank you Jessica." Without waiting for her reply, he hung up the receiver. Then he rolled back onto the bed, rubbing his eyes sleepily. The name Audrey McKenzie brought up the remembered, blurred image of a harassed-looking woman with a mass of uncontrollable hair stuck into a knot at the back of her head that came undone three times during the meeting.

The lump of brocade comforter and silk sheets curled next to him gave off a sigh and shifted closer. Peeking from the embroidered edge of the comforter was a lock of curling, blonde hair.

"Mmm . . ." came a detached, feminine voice from under the covers. "Bruce, was that the phone?" He turned on his side, wincing as his elbow rolled into the bruises on his ribs.

"Yes. I have a vigilante environmentalist lawyer stalking me." The comforter vibrated with giggles.

"I think she has the right idea," mused the comforter sultrily. It tossed aside to reveal Veronica McKenzie, leggy, blonde, with curls floating on the pillow like a halo around her angelic face.

Gotham's new It girl edged closer, the green eyes that had made her famous now dark with desire as she wrapped her arms around him, and pulled him into a deep, drowning kiss that made his senses go haywire.

Veronica McKenzie was also going crazy. She'd never felt this before, and was falling quickly down a spiral tunnel that dropped into Bruce Wayne's arms.

That moment when she saw him, exactly two months ago, when she was shopping with two close friends on Madison Avenue, she froze, staring. She dropped all of her shopping bags, and when he came over to help her pick them up, abandoning the actress he was strolling with, all she could do was stare at the top of his dark hair.

He shuffled up her merchandise in a rascally way, putting her Prada sunglasses in the Gucci shopping bag, and did so with a smirk that said he knew exactly what he was doing.

Then he stood, handing her back the numerous bags, laughing eyes, and she couldn't help herself.

She dated him. Even after her sister told her, with a sour look in her eyes as she dug into her Dean and Deluca turkey sandwich, that he went through supermodels like normal people go through socks.

Her older sister had given the relationship two weeks, tops.

Surprise, surprise – two months later, she was still there. And she had every intention of staying.

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_Two weeks later._

"Wayne Enterprises. How may I help you?" The voice oozed more cheerfulness than a Santa Claus convention.

"I'd like to speak to Mr. Wayne."

"May I ask your name?"

"Audrey McKenzie." The receptionist stopped clicking her fingernails and her eyes flitted to the list of names that she was not to, under any circumstances, allow to talk to anyone. Scribbled in pencil at the bottom was_ Audrey McKenzie_.

"Actually, Miss McKenzie, Mr. Wayne isn't in the office right now. However, I could direct you to Mr. Fox's secretary, who coul—" She was cut off.

"If I told you that Wayne Enterprises intends to build a train station next to an endangered turtle habitat, would you connect me?"

The receptionist bit her lip in indecision.

"Unless I talk to Mr. Wayne and convince him that he'd be very stupid to put the environmental community at arm's length, he'll kill defenseless turtles." Relying on her high school acting career, she pressed her point with a small note of despair. "No one is going to speak for the turtles."

"Well . . ." The receptionist's eyes drifted to the picture of her and her golden retriever. "I didn't do this."

"I completely understand," said Audrey, biting her lip to keep her from laughing.

As she was put on hold, Puccini soaring robotically in her ears, she changed to speakerphone and put the receiver back in the cradle. The 600-page report that she was summarizing lay sprawled across her coffee table, occasional lines highlighted. The blue ballpoint pen clutched in her hand waved as she moved her elbow to shoo away the ball of fluff trying to sit on her laptop.

"Dortmunder!" she snapped. "Go away!" Dortmunder daintily stepped across the keys, pressing 'lokasdf' into the report summary. "Go eat something!" Most likely following her orders, Dortmunder wandered off into the kitchen.

With a mechanical whirl, the stereo in the corner replaced the Vivaldi CD with one of Mozart.

Humming along to the opening stanza of 'The Magic Flute', Audrey circled a paragraph on the report, and typed it into her laptop. Noticing something important, she stuck the pen behind her ear and picked up the purple highlighter.

"Miss McKenzie."

"Yes?" she asked, her voice strained as she grabbed for a stack of papers.

"I'm really sorry. I tried, but Mr. Wayne really isn't in the building. I believe he is having a lunch appointment with his girlfriend." Audrey choked on air, but the receptionist didn't hear. "All I can do is connect you with his secretary."

"That's alright. I've been leaving messages for the past two weeks." Audrey pressed the Disconnect button and let out a savage shriek.

Dortmunder appeared in the doorway, then sniffed and returned to his food dish. Audrey gave a sigh, and leaned back into the couch, throwing her highlighter onto the coffee table. She massaged her temples with fingers stained luminescent purple.

Who would have thought that Audrey Jones would be leaving sixty messages a day for Bruce Wayne like some sort of stalker? When she'd gone into law school, everyone had been certain that she would be a great criminal defense lawyer, just like her mother.

The moment she'd realized that she didn't want to spend the rest of her life protecting Mafia members, she had been walking through campus. There was an environmental protest going on at the time, and she found a few pamphlets about the environmental lobby.

In a way, she'd never left the protest.

She'd seen _The American President_ one too many times, and naively assumed that Annette Benning was properly portraying the way her life would be. Ha. Her life right now was as if she'd never left college – without the inheritance from her grandparents she never would have been able to afford an apartment in Gotham, and she limped by on Ramen noodles and Snapple, not exactly the proper nourishment for a twenty-nine year-old.

Fighting Bruce Wayne for the rights of some turtles was not the way she'd envisioned her career. If, _if_ she could convince Wayne Enterprises to move the train station, it would be a huge boost for her career. She could move down to Washington, still do the whole environmental lobby thing, but find a better paying job.

When it became obvious that massaging her brain was not going to make it work any better, she ran her fingers through the tangled mass calling itself her hair and made a resolution to avoid her sister for the rest of the month.

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**BRUCE WAYNE AND VERONICA JONES: THE NEW IT COUPLE**

GOTHAM – Billionaire Bruce Wayne and model Veronica McKenzie are now engaged. You heard it here first: confidential sources inside the restaurant Il Diamante say that in the middle of a romantic, candlelit dinner, Bruce dropped to one knee and asked Veronica to marry him. According to their publicist, the couple wishes to get married sometime this summer. The ring is a Wayne family heirloom reputed to be worth $8 million when it was last appraised. The bride-to-be, Veronica McKenzie is currently working for Gucci and has been recently named –

Audrey gazed in disgust at _The Gotham Globe_, which was sporting on the first page a sappy-looking picture of Bruce Wayne holding hands with Veronica McKenzie, who was flashing a bright smile that had nothing on the glittering boulder that was sitting on her ring finger. Even the grainy quality black-and-white photo couldn't disguise the gaudiness.

Eyebrows raised, Audrey calculated it to be the size of a marble. _Wayne family heirloom, my ass._

As she flipped the page, a bit harsher than she should have, and took a savage bite of her lox and cream cheese sesame bagel, the phone rang.

"Yes," she mumbled through a mouthful of bread and cheese. The voice that came out was the last one she wanted to hear.

"Audrey! I'm getting married!" Her sister.

"So I've read. Front page of the paper." She swallowed hard, and swilled down some orange juice, wishing that it was a shot. Or five.

"Can you believe it?" continued Ronnie. She'd never been very good at noticing sarcasm. Then again, Ronnie McKenzie had never been the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree; being drop-dead gorgeous meant she didn't have to be.

"Yes," replied Audrey in a monotone, and she heard strangled laughter that couldn't have come from her sister, seeing as Ronnie only giggled. "Ronnie, do you have me on speakerphone?"

"Of course, silly," giggled her sister.

Audrey's eyes lit up like Christmas lights. She dropped her bagel and leaned into the phone.

"Is that billionaire fiancée of yours there?"

"Say hi to my sister, Bruce." Giggle. That had always annoyed Audrey, how much her sister giggled.

"Hi."

Audrey jumped out of her seat, dancing a silent, mad dance of happiness. Her sister chattered on ("Oh my gosh! You have to be my maid of honor, Audrey! You'll look stunning blood red, don't you think? Everyone says that it's going to be this summer's color. Bruce and I have already agreed that it'll be nothing major, just a little affair. Mom and Daddy will just love him, don't you think?") and after a while, Audrey was collected enough to interrupt coolly.

"Well, _Bruce_, it seems you have to latch a boulder to my sister's ring finger for me to get you on the phone."

In Wayne Manor, just about to bite into a celebratory grapefruit, Bruce's heart stopped. He'd heard Ronnie mention her sister numerous times, but the name had never really connected.

"Audrey McKenzie."

_Please, please let me be wrong_, he begged.

"Just out of curiosity, this 'small affair' you're having – will it be before or after you murder a community of helpless turtles with the toxins used to build your train station?" The voice coming out of the phone didn't sound human.

"Listen, _Audrey_," he snapped, unconsciously smashing the grapefruit into his plate. "I don't give a fuck about your goddamn turtles. So you can stop following me around like a groupie and fucking FedEx the turtles off my land!"

Ronnie gazed at him with surprise.

"Bruce," she began, but her furious sister cut her off. The inhuman voice was vibrating at a low pitch.

"You listen, you stuck-up, billionaire bastard. You don't have to give a fuck about the turtles – hell; I don't give a fuck about the turtles! They're annoying and they smell. But that doesn't matter. What does matter is that Wayne Enterprises is run by a prick who thinks that he can boss around the little people because he's the goddamn prince of Gotham!"

"What does that have to do with turtles?" pointed out Bruce nastily, momentarily transported back to eighth grade.

"**Everything**," replied Audrey. "You, you" – here she couldn't find an adjective awful enough to describe him in English, so she moved on to other languages – "_Pièce de merde. Despiadado, fou, rico porc._"

"So now I'm a piece of shit and a heartless, crazy, rich pig?" asked Bruce, slightly impressed with her grasp of the French and Spanish languages.

"Damn straight," she snapped.

"Well, sorry to disappoint, but as far as I can tell you don't know me well enough to make those assumptions," he said, a bit haughtily. That not only took Audrey to the edge, but threw her over it.

"So the incident about you burning down your house in a drunken stupor a few months back was fabricated?" she asked. An uncomfortable pause ensued.

"No. But you don't know the—"

"Whole story? What, you were high and drunk? Oh, I forgot. Because you have enough money to buy and upkeep ten Wayne Manors, it doesn't matter that you burned down your ancestral home, does it?"

Bruce toppled off the edge right behind her.

"Why does me having money seem so despicable to you?" he asked, squeezing his grapefruit even harder. "Is it because you don't?"

_Oops._

He knew, the moment that he said it, that it was a mistake. Still, he didn't expect what came next.

"It's not that you have money and that you throw it around like the pope throws holy water. It's because you don't give a shit about where you throw it." Audrey paused to control herself. To her surprise, she wasn't angry anymore. Hot tears were beginning to blur her vision, and she snapped into the phone, "I'll see you next week, Ronnie," and pressed the Disconnect.

"Bye, Audrey," said Ronnie quietly to the dial tone. Then she turned to Bruce. For the first time ever, he saw that she was angry.

"Don't provoke her like that," she said. "Audrey's always been defensive, and if you two are going to survive Christmas, you'll have to get along."

Christmas?

_Shit._

Bruce had completely forgotten his promise to spend the upcoming two weeks of Christmas vacation with Ronnie and her family. Now that 'family' consisted of Audrey McKenzie, he seriously thought about canceling.

But looking at Ronnie, bubbly, vivacious Ronnie, glare at him in anger, he knew that he couldn't. "I'll try my best."

The anger vanished.

"Great! Okay, we're leaving next Saturday . . ." He tuned his fiancée out, and wiped his sticky fingers on the napkin, dipping them in some water. A mangled blob that looked much too much like an organ was sitting in the middle of his plate.

So much for a celebratory breakfast.

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Please, please please review! It's this nasty little plot bunny, you see . . . it just wouldn't go away!

I had to give in! It just wouldn't LEAVE ME ALONE.

MAKE IT GO AWAY! Because you know your reviews would do that . . .


	2. Meet the Family

Disclaimer: I don't own it. Never have . . . never will. I weep for the loss.

**Author's Note: **You guys were all SO GREAT about reviewing that I decided to update as soon as possible. Thank you! Keep up the great work!

Chapter Two: Meet the Family

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The drive to Connecticut was the shortest drive of Bruce Wayne's life. Although he'd traveled to Hartford on business before, it had always taken him at least two hours. But with Ronnie at the wheel it took less than one and a half.

He'd tried desperately to delay the inevitable, by waking up late (which was hardly a challenge), repacking (which was) and loosing his car keys. Bruce even suggested stopping for lunch (with some brilliant maneuvering, he'd put the lunch Alfred had made at the bottom of the trunk), but Ronnie assured him that, it being two days before Christmas, there would be enough food at her parents'.

Twenty minutes earlier they had left the highway, letting the car jump over potholes that were too far from the frequented roads to be noticed, and eventually trees began to sprout up around them. Finally, Ronnie took a sharp turn, spewing gravel, that even he wouldn't have attempted, and they were sitting in front of a large stone house.

It wasn't large in the way of Wayne Manor, but it had three stories, and sprawled nicely. It was ones of those strange houses that had purple stones as well as the traditional gray, and a slate roof. The only car was a blue pick-up, and Bruce let out a little sigh of relief that they had gotten there before the relentless bitch showed up.

"Audrey must have taken the train in," Ronnie told him, opening the door, and that breath sucked itself right back inside. He'd need it, for all the yelling that would go on during these two weeks.

"Does she do that often?" he found himself asking, following her around to the trunk. She was wearing pink heels added three inches to her already 5'9" frame, and they sunk into the gravel. Crammed in the back were four pink suitcases and one black. Bruce chose the three largest of the pinks and his own, and Ronnie took out the final, and then slammed the back shut.

"Honestly, I don't know. My parents just moved here last February. Back then they were living in West Hartford, where we grew up. When they lived there, Audrey still had a car."

"Still?" he asked.

"She totaled it going back last Christmas. Highway, black ice, some really stupid deer. She's sworn off cars since. And, well, when you live in Gotham, do you really need one?" With a giggle, Ronnie pressed the doorbell and continued, "I've never seen this house. Audrey came to help them move in, but I had to be in Italy. Daddy!"

A chubby man with salt and pepper hair and dark eyes had opened the door, and enveloped Ronnie in a fierce hug. He couldn't be over five feet tall, and vaguely resembled a red and blue striped bowling pin.

"Ronnie, we've missed you," he said exuberantly, and took the pink bag. He disappeared for a second into the house, and then returned, looking at Bruce with ill-disguised interest.

"Daddy, this is Bruce." The two shook hands briefly.

"Hello, Mr. McKenzie," said Bruce uneasily. Of the many supermodels and actresses he'd dated, only once had he had to meet the father, and that was an uncomfortable experience that extreme torture involving enclosed spaces and large flying rats couldn't drag out of him.

"Oh, we're gonna be family! Call me Richie!" Chuckling at something, he stepped back, opened the door wider, and motioned them in.

A large, red-painted room welcomed them. Right in front of the door was a mahogany staircase, and the rest of the living room spread out to the right. Some deep brown leather furniture was scattered in a haphazard but tasteful fashion around a mournfully crackling fire. A large, fat cat which was lying on a rich carpet in front of the fire seemed to be having trouble curling his tail around his stomach.

"That's Dortmunder," said Richie, following Bruce's gaze. "Audrey's cat. She doesn't have anyone to watch him over the vacation, so she brings him with her." The cat (Durtymond?) gazed at him with hardened eyes, before yawning and rolling on his back so Bruce had a nice view of his expansive feline butt.

Richie motioned for him to drop the rest of the bags by the back of the couch, and he did so gladly. "Your mother and your sister are in the kitchen, making cookies," Richie told Ronnie, and the couple followed him through a doorway under the stairs to a well-lit kitchen with silver appliances, the walls painted a cheerful yellow.

An older woman with reddish-blonde hair pulled back from her face with a turquoise clip stood with her back to them. She was taller than her husband – Bruce now saw where Ronnie got her model-esque figure – and was, from what he could see, sorting cookies on a red plate.

Hearing them arrive, she turned and moved to the side, and afforded Bruce his second view of the woman who was the bane of his very existence (though really the first, since he hadn't been paying attention the first time).

He was surprised.

Bleedingheart environmental lobbyists weren't supposed to laugh, have flour on their nose, or be making chocolate chip cookies. Yet there was Audrey McKenzie, giving a full-bodied laugh very much unlike her sister's trademark giggle, flour smudged on the tip of a sculptured nose, pouring Hershey's Minis into a blue bowl.

Then again, Bruce wasn't certain what bleedingheart environmental lobbyists _were_ supposed to be like. This unnerved him.

She looked up, and a smile lit up her face when she saw her sister. They didn't look alike at all – Audrey had a wavy mass of brown hair surrounding her face, a few strands falling into her eyes which she blinked back. The trademark green eyes which had made Veronica famous were also absent, replaced with a color that he could only describe yellow-gold. She also topped off at 5'6", and the denim apron she was wearing did little to hide the fact that she was hardly built like a wire hanger.

The smile, which made her look somewhat attractive, disappeared instantly. For a moment, she looked stunned, like she didn't know what Bruce Wayne was doing in her kitchen, before she remembered, and her features hardened as her eyes narrowed.

"Audrey!" Ronnie said, and she broke the ranks to run squealing over to her sister. They hugged, Audrey spraying flour as she took her hands out of the blue bowl, and began chattering.

"Hello, Mrs. McKenzie," smiled Bruce, extending a hand. She didn't shake it, eyeballing him a fashion reminiscent of her lobbyist daughter, before, without a smile, replying:

"Eve, please."

It was then Bruce remembered that Eve McKenzie had used to be Eve Jones, ruthless criminal defense lawyer, who was just as famous for hating her clients as she was for keeping them out of jail.

He attempted to swallow the lump in his throat.

For a moment, when Veronica and Audrey were talking, and Eve was watching him warily, he finally heard it. "Let it Snow Let it Snow Let it Snow" was echoing in a cheerful way around the kitchen, and he followed it back to a silver CD player, propped next to which was a case that read 'Ronnie and Audrey's Christmas Marathon' in computer writing.

He listened to a few lines before realizing that the music was a piano piece accompanied by an adolescent voice.

"And since we've no place to go let it snow let it snow let it snow," sang out the tiny soprano, and the piano flew behind. Everyone had stopped talking, and were watching him – Eve and Audrey with disgust, Ronnie with happiness, and Richie with interest.

"That's from when Ronnie and Audrey were in elementary school," said Richie. Bruce took it that he meant the music.

"Oh god, you kept this?" asked Veronica. "I had such an awful little voice." Audrey snorted.

"_You_ had an awful voice? We're lucky that I just played the piano – can you imagine me singing a Christmas carol?" The whole family chuckled at some inside joke, and Audrey's eyes moved over to him, watching warily. She seemed to regret the sentence the moment it came out of her mouth.

"So . . . Mom, Daddy, I want a full tour!" announced Ronnie, and before Bruce could ask to tag along they had vanished, leaving him and Audrey alone.

"Look, let's get this out of the way," began Audrey at the same time he said, "Can we postpone this?"

They glared.

"I happen to like Christmas, normally," said Audrey, slamming her fists into the cookie dough. "So let's just get this past us so I can go on enjoying."

"No," replied Bruce. He would rather enjoy Christmas as well, but he was purposely disagreeing with what she said.

"Too bad," shot back Audrey. "All you have to do is move the train station forty feet. _Forty feet_. If you don't know how long it is, it's about the length of one of the rooms in your mansion."

"No."

"Since you'll finally talk to me, give me a reason. And a good one. 'Because I want to' is not a good reason." Audrey began spooning the cookies onto balls and dropping them on the sheet.

"How about this: my land ends in ten?"

"Hello, you're Bruce Wayne. Buy the next thirty, just move it." Her voice was becoming lower, and those gold eyes were flashing.

"No. Anyway, the land belongs to the church."

"The 'church'? Where are we, Masterpiece Theater? I don't know if you watch the news, but I've heard that the pope'll do anything for money right about now." Her sarcasm was laced with fury. Bruce was starting to wonder how good a lobbyist she was if she lost her temper this easily.

"Believe it or not, I do have morals. And bribing the church is below what I'm going to do." Even her snorts managed to sound furious.

"That's a nasty habit, you know," he said. Before he could add anything else, she grabbed a handful of cookie dough and, screaming, pitched it at his face.

With a detached feeling, Bruce watched the amorphous lump circle through the air.

Completely thrown off, the lump of flour, sugar, and chocolate hit the center of his forehead, and stuck.

Replying like the four-year-old that he felt like, he peeled it off and threw it back. She ducked with reflexes that he took the time to admire, and it splattered against the window behind her. She slipped her hand into the bowl and pitched a larger handful, which he was able to catch and return.

This time she wasn't able to duck fast enough, and the glob tangled itself in her hair. With an inhuman shriek, she took a hold of the cookie tray, heavy, and half-full of balls of dough, and waved it at him. He held his ground, certain she wasn't about to do what she threatened.

After all, the woman couldn't be _that_ crazy.

With another shriek she threw the tray at him, and it spun through the air, catching him on the side of the head with a dull _thunk_.

He collapsed like Wile E. Coyote after an anvil had been dropped on him. His mind began making ringing noises, and when he pulled himself off the floor, his head no longer rolling around on his shoulders, his eyes no longer seeing stars and focused, Audrey had vanished, along with the bowl of cookie dough.

Unbelievable.

_Master-mind villains with nuclear weapons and martial arts? Piece of cake_, thought Bruce as he clutched the granite countertop. _Crazy environmental lobbyists pitching around cookie dough? And I fall like a loud of bricks. _

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_I had a cookie dough fight with Bruce Wayne. I had a cookie dough fight with Bruce Wayne. I acted like an illogical, irreverent four-year-old in front of a man who can destroy my reputation with the blink of an eye. _

Audrey stared, blankly, out over the forest. There was an acre of cleared land, half of that covered by the house. She was sitting on the white wooden swing towards the end of the clearing.

With a groan, she continued her mental mantra and scooped out a small handful of cookie dough from the blue ceramic bowl sitting on her lap, and gnawed a bit off her fingertip. With her toe, she pushed herself back and forth.

_I won't win this fucking case if I throw cookie dough at the defendant. He'll get a restraining order, the Hatford Fund will find another lawyer, and I'll be eating Beef Ramen for the rest of my life._

She chewed thoughtfully on the cookie dough.

_I could apologize._

Ha. Not bloody likely.

_I could . . . go back to Gotham on business. _

Damn. And then miss her favorite holiday with her parents? And no matter how much her sister annoyed her, she still loved Ronnie.

_Ignore him_.

Out of all of her choices, this seemed to be the best.

_Act like it never happened._

Eureka.

Unfortunately, this decision would require the agreement of Bruce Wayne. Somehow she had the feeling that he wouldn't be receptive to her needs, considering how she threw a handful of cookie dough at him.

_Provoked. I was completely provoked. _

Like James Salamone was going to believe that. The head of the Hatford Fund had never really liked her . . . and he was searching desperately for a reason to fire her.

_And I just gave him one._

Audrey groaned, and pushed harder. The swing creaked ominously, and she threw down the bowl of cookie dough with a half-sigh, half-groan. She sprung upward, propelling herself off the rickety swing and onto the icy ground.

Bad idea.

Shrieking, Audrey was tumbled off balance and began to drop onto her butt – a nasty prospect she bravely faced by screwing her eyes shut – when an arm secured itself around her waist and yanked her upward.

The shriek turned into a startled scream as she inadvertently kicked whoever had just helped her, scrambling for purchase. "Put me down," she demanded, her feet swinging above the ground. Because, of course, there was only one person in the damn house that was strong enough (and tall enough) to lift her off her feet . . . Bruce Wayne.

"Gladly."

He dropped her, and as her feet began to slide away from her again, she grabbed the first thing she could find. Once again, the billionaire handily nearby.

Then the bastard had the gall to laugh. At her. He was laughing at her. Audrey clenched her fists, the spasms crunching the fabric of his shirt, which she had grabbed in her attempts to keep from falling on her butt like an extra in a Marx Brothers movie. _I will not hit him, I will not hit him, I will not hit him_.

"What do you want?" she asked through clenched teeth, still processing the mantra through her head (_I will not hit him, WILL NOT HIT HIM_). He finally stopped laughing, and looked down at her – he had to have ten inches on – his breath crystallizing on her nose. She grimaced.

"I came to give you the chance to apologize."

(_I will not hit him, I will not hit him_)

"Not. Very. Likely."

"So I take it you feel no regret for pitching a handful cookie dough at me? Then you wouldn't mind telling James Salamone for me?"

(_I WILL NOT HIT HIM._)

Bastard had her exactly where he wanted her; judging by his smirk, he knew it as well.

Audrey's teeth almost cracked as she clenched them together, and hissed between them; "I'm sorry." She sounded as if she was having her teeth pulled. Slowly, enough so that her knuckles cracked, she loosened her hands from his shirt. There were crescent moon creases in his silk shirt from her fingernails, and she got vague satisfaction from that.

Stiffly, Audrey carefully stalked away from the infuriating man, slowly enough that she wouldn't slip, telling herself that she wasn't retreating.

After all, she'd get him back. And she'd have a whole two weeks to do so.

_Look out, Bruce Wayne_.

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Woo-hoo! Got a little violent there.

So . . . there's this thing. Called reviewing. And if you're totally rad you'll do it. BE TOTALLY RAD.


	3. Dancing Practice

Disclaimer: I got the DVD for my birthday. Does this count?

**Author's Note: **Yay! I'm updating! AGAIN!

Thank you all for reviewing!

Mind you, I'd like for everybody who read my story to review.

Moving on! Guess what the injury of the month is? I blistered the base of every finger on my left hand gardening. I'm typing this author's note with my right hand. Very slow going. I'll post as soon as possible.

Chapter Three: Dancing Practice

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So he and Audrey McKenzie had reached an uneasy truce.

At least, that was the impression Bruce woke up with the next morning, eight o'clock sharp.

Ever since meeting Ronnie, he'd been forced to wake up at the same time a normal human being did – because she still had yet to discover his 'secret identity', and honestly Bruce had no idea how to tell her. His expeditions as Batman were now done on a when-Ronnie-was-out-of-town-basis, and this was not the way he liked to work things.

He laid in bed for ten minutes, staring at the white ceiling of the room he and Ronnie had been allotted. It was painted pale blue, with a nauseating amount of throw pillows that Bruce had been tempted to toss out the window. Ronnie, however, had loved them, throwing herself onto the bed and clutching them to her chest, squealing excitedly.

Turning to the left, Bruce rubbed the yellowing bruises on his elevated side, and surveyed the small mountain of ridiculously tasseled throw pillows. With a sigh, he tossed up the covers, and grabbed his robe off the floor.

He stumbled downstairs to find Ronnie, Eve and Richie clustered around the kitchen table, chomping on cereal and yogurt and granola, all sipping orange juice and talking far too loudly and brightly for this early in the morning.

He plopped down in a chair next to Ronnie, poured himself a glass of orange juice, and told himself that this was all for the greater good. He needed to get to know Ronnie's family; this all complete crap, of course. What he _needed_ was three more hours of sleep.

"Morning, Bruce," declared Richie, chuckling.

"Daddy, Bruce doesn't like mornings," said Ronnie, patting Bruce on the forearm. "He thinks I'm just crazy."

God, how could this family function? Bruce had found early on that Ronnie was a morning person, but he figured her to be defective. It seemed that it was instead a genetic thing, because Richie was talking. _Talking_ before ten in the morning.

"Is that right?" asked Eve, a calculating look in her eye as she looked on at her future son-in-law. Bruce saw a hint of Audrey's trademark smirk on her mother's lips as Eve raised her tea cup.

"Has anyone seen Audrey?"

"Oh Daddy," giggled Ronnie as she bit her banana, the only thing on her plate. "You know that Ronnie doesn't get up before nine-thirty."

"And doesn't talk for another half hour," added Richie, laughing jovially at his own pathetic joke. Bruce swilled his orange juice and wished heartily for them all to_ shut up_.

"Who the _fuck_ thought it would be funny to set their alarm?"

The words were garbled and throaty and very, very pissed off. Bruce turned to see a sleep-tousled Audrey, eyes flaming, shuffled into the kitchen. She was wearing a pair of blue cotton pajama pants and an over-large navy sweatshirt that hung off her right shoulder. She threw open a cabinet, grasped a grey box inside and pulled out a tea bag.

"You know your mother and I don't set alarms during the holidays, honey," said Richie, pulling out a chair for her as she shuffled over, strained her tea bag. She plopped down, opened the sugar bowl and deposited three heaping scoops into her mug, before raising hostile eyes to the man seated across from her.

Who was, he suddenly realized, the owner of the alarm clock.

"Guilty," he mumbled, voice lower than usual. "Must've forgotten I packed it."

"I advise," she hissed across her steaming mug, "that you turn it off before it meets a violent death plummeting down three stories into the rose bushes." She took a sip. "Oh, wait, it already has."

Her voice was becoming clearer and clearer with each syllable, and she smirked for a final time before cutting a slice of poppy-seed bread and stuffing it in her mouth.

"Thanks for informing me," replied Bruce, while in his mind he was imagining taking his butter knife and sticking it through her jugular. She mumbled something around the bread in reply, and stole the Life section of _The Hartford Courant_ from her father.

Bruce clenched his jaw and stole an apple, then attacked it like he'd rather be attacking the eldest McKenzie sister. When he'd devoured it, leaving only the seeds and core, he looked up to see Audrey surveying him over the top of the Life section, which she seemed to enjoy lingering over. He shot her a nasty look, which she happily returned before returning to the comics.

" . . . won't that be fun Bruce?"

He'd missed something.

Bruce's neck cracked as he whipped his head around to look at his fiancée, who stared at him with an innocently tilted head. He really didn't want to loose face before Audrey, who was smirking, and surely whatever Ronnie had come up with wasn't _that_ bad.

"Of course," he said, shooting her a high-wattage, high-fake grin.

When he turned to look at Audrey, her smirk had grown to magnanimous proportions. Her mouth opened, revealing small crooked teeth and the hint of a pink tongue, and out came the words that bespelled his doom: "I hope you brought your dancing shoes, _Bruce_."

_Fuck._

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They were back in the red living room; all the leather furniture had been pushed to the outer corners, mostly by Bruce, and the large carpet had been rolled up and moved out of the room altogether, also by Bruce.

Bruce uneasily shifted from his left foot to his right as Audrey watched him from her sprawled position on the leather couch. She'd changed into jeans and a bulky dark green sweater, and her hair had tangled itself into messy curls, which she had wrapped her fingers in and tugged occasionally as she watched her sister's fiancée.

He looked uncomfortable; exactly her intentions.

Of course, wedding dancing practice weren't the full extent of the punishment she had in store for Bruce Wayne, Prince of Gotham. But when Ronnie had mentioned that they had a spring wedding in mind, Audrey was unable to resist.

She tugged her hair again; it was a nasty habit, but she tended to pull it when she was thinking. Right now she was dreaming up more ways to make these two weeks as uncomfortable for Bruce Wayne as possible.

So far, she was succeeding.

"Do you dance much?" He whirled around, looking trapped, and Audrey bit back a laugh even as she allowed herself a smirk. "I'll take that as a no." She swung her legs off the side arms of the couch and pushed herself into a sitting position. "Won't this be fun to watch."

"Watch?" demanded Bruce, looking, if possible, even more miserable. "You won't be joining us."

"Gosh no," grinned Audrey. "It's just you and Ronnie and Mom and Dad. Two generations of McKenzies." Her smile turned malicious. "I wanna take _pictures_." Bruce looked even more pathetic as she pulled herself off the couch and stalked forward. "Maybe I'll make a scrapbook for the wedding."

"You little _bi_—"

"Bruce! You ready for some practice?" Ronnie rushed in, clad in a flowery green dress that matched her eyes. It was drowning in white ribbons, and regardless of its status as a Ralph Lauren original, Audrey found it nauseating.

She giggled. Audrey found the combination to be even more nauseating.

"Ready," replied Bruce, his face almost splitting with the obviously fake smile. Eve and Richie appeared, the former dressed in a less be-ribbon-ed version of Robbie's dress. She looked stately and elegant, while Ronnie looked bright and summery. They looked more like mother and daughter now than they had the night before.

The two couples paired off, and Audrey produced a slim digital camera, clicking away even as she moved towards the stereo.

"Smile!" she proclaimed, grinning at the scowl on the face of her least favorite person in the room, and snapping a picture of it for memory.

_That's a desktop background in the making._

She clapped her hands, and smirked. "Ready?" Without waiting for a reply she whirled around, camera hanging by its grey strap around her wrist, and enthusiastically pressed the 'Play' button.

Bruce, deciding that the best thing to do would be to stop acting miserable and therefore deny Audrey her malicious pleasure, tugged Ronnie closer, and was rewarded a giggle for his efforts. Eyes sparkling, Ronnie took half a step closer so their bodies were locked together, and grinned seductively; a far cry from her sister's ever-present smirk.

"_When marimba rhythms start to play _

_Dance with me, make me sway_

_Like a lazy ocean hugs the shore_

_Hold me close, sway me moooooore_ . . ."

"Audrey!" Eve stepped back and turned furiously on her daughter at the exact same time Bruce let out a sigh of deep annoyance, and began to dance. "Michael Buble? Audrey! Of all the songs!"

"Come on Mom," she laughed triumphantly. "A little cliché music can't hurt you. Would you prefer to waltz to Grateful Dead?" As Eve acquiesced, and returned to Richie's arms, Bruce, stunned, watched as Audrey turned up the volume.

The woman was amazing.

His earlier question (how can this woman be a lobbyist if she's so damn temperamental?) had just answered itself.

Ronnie didn't have to stand on her toes to put her mouth next to Bruce's ear and whisper, "Just humor Audrey, Bruce."

He smiled for his fiancée's benefit, and was reward when she moved her hand from his shoulder to his neck and fingered the hair that was growing a bit longer than he usually let it.

"_Like a flower bending in the breeze_

_Bend with me, sway with ease_

_When we dance you have a way with me_

_Stay with me, sway with me_ . . ."

Bruce decided that maybe dancing without Ronnie wouldn't be as torturous as he'd originally presumed; he knew from experience that, while she wasn't horrifically bad, Ronnie McKenzie was not built to dance. All the same, her innate grace from years of modeling enabled her to pretend nicely.

He was just about to throw himself into enjoying the experience when someone's cell phone began to tingle madly. Ronnie winced and sadly withdrew herself from Bruce's arms, rushing over to her designer purse on the leather chair. "Hello? Oh! Jamie!" She turned to her family, made a face, and walked upstairs. "Yeah, I'm at my parents' . . ."

Audrey paused the music, still smiling brightly, knowing that she would have plenty of time to take more embarrassing pictures, and said, "What shall we do while we wait?"

"Why wait?" Richie twirled Eve around in a circle, dipped her backwards, and paused to look at his daughter, standing by the leather couch. "Ditch the camera and practice with Bruce, Audrey." Humming to a song only in his head, he launched into a mixture of the samba and the waltz that had Eve laughing delightedly.

Recognizing her own stubbornness in her father, Audrey bit her lip before throwing the camera into the couch and returning to the stereo. It figured that her father would choose to be oblivious on the fact that _she and Bruce hated each other_.

She started the song over again, and stepped towards the general direction of Bruce. Disgust was evident in her face, and she didn't figure that she had to hide it. It wasn't as if either of them were attempting to get brownie points for charm.

"_Like a lazy ocean hugs the shore_

_Hold me close, sway me moooooore_ . . ."

Bruce hesitantly put his hand at the side of her waist as if expecting her skin to burn him through the bulky wool of her sweater. Deciding that perhaps there was merit in the situation after all, Audrey rolled her eyes, grabbed his hand, and moved it to the small of her back.

She gripped his other hand hard enough to crack the joints, and took a step forwards, knowing that they were starting off beat. Bruce did the same, seeming unaware of the beat of the song, and they crack knees. Her smirk returned full force. "What's the matter _Bruce_? Two left feet?"

The next beat, a turn, Bruce tilted his foot upward from the heel and twisted Audrey around it so she tripped. He caught her easily in one hand and swung her back up viciously. "Seems you're not so skilled yourself, _Audrey_."

Challenge received. Challenge accepted.

A gleam lit up her eye, and with the next note of the bass, she ground her heel into his toe with a harsh stop, taking satisfaction in the wince that grazed his handsome face as she mashed his toes into the wooden floor.

"_I can hear the sound of violins_

_Long before it begins_

_Make me thrill as only you know how_

_Sway me smooth, sway me now . . ._"

Bruce bided his time until the next turn, when he snapped her away fast enough that something in her wrist began to throb. As she swooped back towards him, her foot shot out and connected with his shin just below the knee.

Her face, coming close to his as the beat ended, was triumphant.

Bruce, however, was finding it hard to retaliate, because turned out that Audrey McKenzie, with five years of ballet under her belt, was a fabulous dancer. And Bruce, what with his society upbringing, wasn't too bad either. As it was, however unconscious they were of the fact, Audrey and Bruce made quite the dashing pair.

"_Other dancers may be on the floor_

_Dear, but my eyes will see only you_

_Only you have that magic technique_

_When we sway I go weeeeaaak . . ._"

He really was, Audrey learned, a good lead. Nothing like the saps she'd gone to law school with. And although she was no longer floating along feeling superior, it wasn't like she was enjoying herself.

Not at all.

Because dancing with Bruce Wayne, no matter how good a dancer he may have been, was not an exercise Audrey McKenzie enjoyed . . . seeing as how it involved Bruce Wayne, someone she was considering for the position of her official mortal enemy.

And Bruce was just as miserable.

Never mind that Audrey was a far better dancer than her sister, possessing a combination of skill and grace that she lacked elsewhere, if her constant tripping over air was any indication; never mind that she, unlike Ronnie, seemed to know what she was doing when it came to the dance floor.

He absolutely _despised_ Audrey McKenzie on principle. And who wouldn't? She was violent and manipulative and annoying and smirked far too much . . . and had the strangest pair of eyes Bruce had ever seen. They were _gold_. Who had _gold_ eyes?

Other than Audrey, obviously.

"_Make me thrill as only you know how_

_Sway me smooth, sway me now_

_You know how_

_Sway me smooth, sway me nooooooow_."

The song ended, and simply – he told himself – for the pleasure of seeing something other than smug satisfaction light the face of his newest nemesis, Bruce tipped her backwards in an extravagant dip. There was a scattering of annoyance and confusion in her strange eyes as he did so, and for once Bruce was the one smirking.

It was then, of course, that his phone had to ring.

Frowning, Bruce hauled Audrey upwards, forgetting for a moment that he was supposed to be Bruce Wayne, mild-manner billionaire and almost tossing her into the air, and excused himself quickly. He'd _told_ Alfred he would be unreachable for the two weeks post-Christmas, and his first day there the butler was ringing him.

Not even on the damn company phone, but the other, smaller model he'd affectionately dubbed 'The Bat Phone' . . . which could only mean one thing.

"Dammit, Alfred," he hissed into the phone he now clutched to his ear. "Batman's taking extended leave while his alter ego spends quality time with a _sadistic lobbyist who would be only too happy to out him_." He whirled around to make sure said sadistic lobbyist hadn't followed him to the kitchen and was eavesdropping.

"I _am_ sorry sir," replied the butler without a hint of remorse in his tone, "but there seems to be a slightly difficulty arising within Gotham that requires Batman's unique expertise immediately. I'm afraid it's rather urgent."

"How urgent?" hissed Bruce, turning his face towards the window overlooking the backyard where he and Audrey had settled on their supposed truce the previous afternoon.

Hah. That'd lasted long.

"Urgent enough, Master Wayne" – Alfred didn't sound as apologetic as he should have. Realizing this, he added a touch of subtle regret about ruining Bruce's vacation – "that I suggest you return as soon as possible."

"I thought this was a slight difficulty." Bruce ran his fingers angrily through his hair. Ronnie would be furious, but Ronnie had to find out about Batman eventually, if she was going to become Mrs. Bruce Wayne. "Send the jet on Thursday. I want to be there and back as soon as possible."

"Naturally, sir. Thursday to Weston Field, sir."

Bruce snapped the phone shut and tapped his face against the cold glass that protected him from the snowfall occurring over the McKenzie property.

Well, on the bright side he wouldn't have to spend as much time with Audrey.

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I was originally just going to have Batman appear occasionally, but I've decided that perhaps a new villian would liven things up a bit. What do ya'll think?

Do I introduce a new villian, or focus the story on Bruce and Audrey?

PLEASE REVIEW! Even if you hate it! I don't mind flames!

Of course . . . nice reviews are good too. I'll totally go for nice reviews.


	4. The Morning After

Disclaimer: No, I don't own Bruce Wayne. If I did, do you think I'd be writing this? _No_. I'd been off making out in a broom closet in Wayne Manor.

**Author's Note**: Okay, I succumbed! I don't know why, but every time I stick Bruce and Audrey together, they end up fighting! There's just something about their personalities that makes them fight; I know many of you believe that Bruce isn't in character, but I think that's because he's always around calm bimbos who don't challenge him or his beliefs like Audrey does. Thus, I'm forced to create responses that I don't have a reference for.

**Second Author's Note**: Sorry this took a while. Summer's almost over, so you'll have to get used to delayed responses anyway, but I've been totally swamped. I've put attraction to Audrey in Bruce's brain to reward you all for the AMAZING reviews I've been receiving. They'll realize they're in love eventually . . .

Chapter Four: The Morning After

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The morning after Christmas Bruce awoke at six o'clock. He'd been asleep for three hours, but he found himself unable to return to sleep. Alfred would have sent the Lear to Weston Field by now – he had to be out of the house before Audrey woke up.

Audrey.

Audrey, who it turned out, was a lot more fun when she was drunk off her feet.

"_You," she'd said, poking him in the chest, while her glass of red wine tilted alarmingly, "have got to lighten up a bit. I don't know what makes you sho up-tight, but you realllllly outta loosen up the shcrews."_

"_Do I?" he asked, amused, and only slightly tipsy. It was, after all, three o'clock in the morning. This was supposed to be a victory drink in celebration of Audrey whooping her father at Monopoly, before they went to bed._

"_Yeshp," she replied, knocking back another sip of her Pinot Noir. Her head tilted back and back and back, and Bruce was forced to latch onto her arm so she didn't topple into the couch._

"_You really can't handle your liquor, can you?" inquired Bruce with a wry grin. This was her second glass, and she was already slurring her words. He didn't have Richie and Eve as a reference, seeing as how they and Ronnie had retired to bed twenty minutes before._

"_Nope," said Audrey with theatrically-widened eyes. "Never could, never . . . could."_

"_Sure." Which was the only thing he could think to say. _

"_I know that I know that I don't like you," continued Audrey, "but what you _don't _know is that I wanna like you. Maybe if you didn't keep calling me a bitsht, we could work something out."_

"_When have I called you a bitch?" _

"_You've thought it," confided Audrey. "I can tell."_

"_Can you?" asked Bruce._

"_Quite the shykic," replied Audrey cryptically. Bruce took the time to notice that he still hadn't let go of her arm. When he did so, she fell onto the couch with a surprised expression on her face. "Why'd you do that?" she demanded, and then pulled on his wrist so he joined her._

_Realizing that her glass was empty, Audrey glared at it with narrowed eyes before shrugging and tossing it backwards over her shoulder. Bruce easily caught it, grinning._

"_We should tell each other somphing," she declared. "That way we feel closer, so maybe I won't hate you sho much if it turns out you like puppies or somphing."_

"_We should?"_

"_Yeshp. I'll go first. I like realllllly old movies. Like 'To Catshp A Thief' and . . . 'Gone with the Wind' . . . and "Breakfasht at Tiphpany'sh'." _

_Bruce opened his mouth to tell her god knows what, but she had tilted into his shoulder, and was seemingly fast asleep. It was ridiculous . . . but maybe she was onto something. He did like her a little better, now that he could picture her curled up on a sofa with that fat cat Durtymond, watching Cary Grant and Grace Kelly light up a TV screen._

_He stood, and debated whether or not to leave her there, before tossing caution (and hate) to the wind, and scooping her up. He'd deposited her in her bedroom, and then go back to have a nice snuggle with Ronnie._

Next to him, the comforter fluttered twice as Ronnie snuggled closer to his side, drawing him out of his memories.

He didn't look forward to having to tell her the truth about his mysterious over-night escapades; as far as she knew, Bruce's injuries came from judo practice three nights a week.

It was now or never.

"Ronnie?"

"Hmm?"

"Wake up, Ronnie. I've got something to tell you."

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"Audrey!"

Still floating through a haze of unconsciousness, Audrey rolled over onto her stomach and threw a bare arm over her head.

"AUDREY!"

Groaning, she snuggled deeper into the cocoon she'd created out of the purple comforter. How late had she been up last night? God, until three at least . . . yet another reason why she and her father rarely played board games together.

Both parties were generally too stubborn to surrender, and the games tended to extend into infinity.

The memory of her eventually beating her father into bankruptcy at the end of a particularly violent game of Monopoly had Audrey half-hearted grinning into her arm before she attempted to return to sleepy-time-land. She'd conveniently forgotten those two glasses of Pinot Noir.

"_Audrey Jane McKenzie!_"

"Shut up," mumbled Audrey, and barely acknowledged the yank that tugged the comforter off her back. As the cold air hit her bare skin, Audrey groped for the other pillow, and upon finding it, pulled it over her head. She had a pounding headache that seemed to have been sent from the devil himself; more sleep would be nice.

"Go away!" she said through it. "It's too early."

"Audrey, please, please wake up!"

Maybe it was the sobs that clued Audrey in that her sister wasn't playing around. She pulled herself out of the blankets to find Ronnie, green eyes smudged with red and tear tracks, clutching a nauseatingly striped throw pillow to her chest.

"Audrey," she gulped in a watery voice. "You were right! Why do you always have to be right? _I_ wanna be right for once!" With a sob, Ronnie flopped onto the bed and flapped an arm in her sister's direction.

"Right about what?" asked Audrey, still a bit groggy, her brain seemingly have been relocated to her kneecaps.

"_Bruce_," hissed Ronnie. Her lower lip vibrated. "You were right that there's something wrong with him!"

She burst into a new batch of tears.

"Ronnie, honey?" Audrey reached out and pulled her younger sister into her arms. Blonde curls scratched the underside of her chin, and she ignored them for the moment. "Tell me what he's done, Ronnie."

"_Batman_," whispered Ronnie.

"What?" Audrey was confused, something that rarely happened. "What's that about Batman?"

"_Bruce mmphs Batman_," continued Ronnie in a whispered voice.

"What's that about Bruce and Batman?"

"Not 'and'," wailed Ronnie. "Is! Is! Bruce _is_ Batman! That's what he had to tell me! He had to get back to Gotham this morning because they need him. What about me? I need him! I need him more than those stupid police need him as Batman!"

"Wait a second," interrupted Audrey. "Are you telling me that your fiancée, Bruce Wayne, is actually _Batman_?" Her brain returned to her skull in time to begin pushing emphatically against her browbone.

"Yes!" sobbed Ronnie into Audrey's neck. "And he didn't even bother telling me! He's only told me now so he can get to Weston Field airport without me worrying!"

Abandoning the useless platitudes, Audrey brushed her fingers through her sister's tangled curls as Ronnie cried and wailed and mumbled unintelligible sentences about the monogamy of men and their secret identities.

Audrey, meanwhile, was thinking of creative ways of castrating him. _Her baby sister_.

"What was the name of that airport again, honey?"

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"Weston Field airport. How can I help you?"

"You could let me through the gates."

"I'm sorry, who is this?"

"Audrey McKenzie. I'm the sister of Bruce Wayne's fiancée."

"Ms. McKenzie, I'm terribly sorry, but no one except authorized personnel and passengers can enter the airport."

"Who says I'm not a passenger?"

"Mr. Wayne's submitted flight plan specifies that he and the pilot are the only people traveling onboard. If he'd made a change in his plans, I can call him and clarify."

"Please! Please, just let me talk to him. I promise I'm not even getting on the plan. He's visiting my sister and my family for Christmas, and there's something he forgot."

"I really can't—"

"Open the goddamn gates!"

"I advice that you don't shake the gates in such a manner, Ms. McKenzie. I'll be forced to notify security."

"Please! Five minutes!"

"I'm afraid that simply is not allowed. If you state your business, I'll try and inform Mr. Wayne . . ."

"Fine. Tell him that I want to see him before he goes gallivanting off to Gotham."

"One moment please."

" . . . . . ."

"Ms. McKenzie?"

"Yes?"

"Mr. Wayne will see you now."

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Bruce looked up from his newspaper to see Audrey stalking across the tarmac towards him. He took a moment to wonder what she was doing here – and still dressed in her pajamas, the pants stuffed into brown boots, and an unzipped jacket flapping around her torso – when she was in front of him. Other than purple lines under her eyes, there was no evidence of the vicious hangover he had predicted for her.

"Audrey?" he asked, setting aside the newspaper. "What are you doing here?"

She didn't _look_ angry, so Bruce was unprepared when she picked up his paper cup of scalding coffee and poured it over his head.

Screaming, Bruce leapt up as the boiling liquid seeped through his hair and down his neck. It wouldn't leave burns, but it sure felt like hell. "What was that for!" he demanded, towering over her. He thought they'd reached some sort of agreement the night before – mind you, drunk as she had been, maybe she couldn't remember it – but it seemed that once again Audrey was trumping the truce.

"For breaking my sister's heart, _Batman_."

"_What did you just say?_" He stepped closer, unintentionally threatening, and Bruce could feel the infuriation rising in the pit of his stomach, just as scalding as the cup of coffee that had been recently poured over his head. Dammit, for _once_ could Ronnie keep her mouth shut?

"You heard me." Audrey's mouth was drawn into a thin line. "How could you lie to her! She's in love with you, and now she'd sobbing into throw pillows!" She tried to slap him, but he caught her wrist easily enough, not in the mood for more physical abuse. "Let go of me!" she shrieked, but he kept it in a tight fist.

"Don't hit me," he said in a low voice.

"Don't lie to my sister!" she hissed back, her nose almost touching his. With an inhuman shriek she slammed her heel into his toe, vaguely reminiscent of their dancing two days before. Bruce winced and using his latch on her wrist thrust her backwards. Her head snapped backwards and then forwards on her neck, her golden eyes narrowed to slivers.

"I thought you'd be ecstatic to find another reason to hate me," replied Bruce. "Isn't that what you _love_ to do? Hate me?" Their conversation the night before – or really, earlier that morning – had flown out of his head the moment her foot connected with his.

"I don't hate you!" Audrey clawed at his arm. "I hate what you make me into! I hate that I'm bitter and angry and AHH!" She pummeled her free fist into his chest. He grabbed that wrist as well, and then she was waving her trapped arms about like a windmill, screeching as if she was a trapped animal, hair in all its glory standing on end.

She looked just as wild as Ronnie looked contained, and Bruce found himself wondering what would happen if they would stop yelling at each other and started having normal conversations; they seemed to have a lot in common. Hated mornings. Loved old movies. Alfred would certainly like her.

But then she screamed again.

"Shut up!" roared Bruce, and he knew that he'd scared her, because even though her eyes widened and she huffed angrily, she stopped screaming. "Listen, I love Ronnie, I really do, and the only reason I didn't tell her about me being Batman was because I was worried about her. I didn't know it would break her heart, or make her angry, I just wanted to keep her _safe_." He sounded plaintive, a voice that never failed at getting him brownie points from females.

This female, however, was immune.

"And you're doing a marvelous job," hissed Audrey. She tried to pull her hands back, but he kept them locked at her sides, and pulled her closer to get better leverage. In order to keep their eyes locked, Audrey was forced to tilt her head up, and her hair tickled his throat.

"I'm going to Gotham to get rid of this creep, and then I'm coming back and spending the rest of Christmas with you and Ronnie and your parents, all right? I'm not running away, I'm not abandoning my broken-hearted fiancée. _I'm coming back_."

She snorted, struggling to be released. "Yeah, and I'm Father Christmas."

"Why don't you believe me?" he snapped. "And why do you _hate_ me?" This, most of all, confused him. No one else – other than her mother, and the occasional nemesis of Batman – hated him. Because despite her earlier comments to the contrary, Bruce knew that she hated him. He just didn't know why.

"Because you're just going to leave Ronnie!" she yelled, which was more of a wail. "When the next flavor of the month comes, Ronnie's going to be in the garbage and I'll be cleaning up the pieces, just like last time!"

This surprised him. "Last what?"

"Let go," hissed Audrey, and there was a hint of fear in her eyes. He finally relented, because he was stunned to realize that it hurt him to know that she was afraid of him. Probably more that it should have. She yanked her hands, stumbling backwards, gave him a final glare, and whirled around to stalk off the tarmac.

Bruce gazed after her for a moment, wondering what exactly about Audrey McKenzie was making him infuriated, confused . . . and strangely attracted.

The pilot at his shoulder shook him out of his thoughts. "Mr. Wayne, the plane is ready."

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Next Chapter: VILLAIN!

Because a new evil dude is in such high demand, don't worry, we'll introduce him/her next chapter.

Will Ronnie get over Bruce's 'betrayal'? Will Audrey follow Bruce to Gotham to continue their argument? WILL WE FIND OUT WHAT EVERYONE GOT FOR CHRISTMAS?

Tune in next time to find out!

_Reviewer (noun): a person or persons whose sole goal in life is to respond to the updates posted by an author(ess), who will in turn respond with more chapters._


	5. Lights Out!

Disclaimer: I finally own something! The purple shirt with a yellow duck? That's all me, people!

**Author's Note:** Welcome, unsuspecting populace, to FORESHADOWING. This is when I GIVE YOU HINTS TO WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN LATER ON. Accept my gifts with heart-felt thanks.

Here's my turn for heart-felt thanks: thank you all for the amazing reviews! I warms my ickle heart to know that I'm loved, and that this story (which is actually quite fun to right. Violence rules!) is as well.

Enjoy chapter five.

Chapter Five: Lights Out!

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As she settled into her father's light blue pickup, buried inch-deep in ice in the Weston Field airport parking lot, Audrey slammed her fist into the center of the steering wheel angrily. _I hate him, I hate him, I hate him_.

The horn erupted into a series of erratic honks that had a few flannel-shirted types clutching cups of coffee by a shack (seemingly held together by spit and prayers) shoot her nasty looks.

She debated whether or not to flip them off, but then decided that combined with her outburst five minutes earlier, it would be immature. Instead she pulled her hand from the horn and gave them a rueful grin. They harrumphed almost in unison, and hunched their backs, turning away from her.

"My god, Audrey," she whispered to herself, resting her head on the grimy top of the steering wheel, carefully avoiding the horn, "what the hell is wrong with you?"

Correct answer: smarmy-billionaire-slash-superhero.

This whole _thing_ with Bruce Wayne was blowing out of proportion. She'd attacked him three times in three days! She groaned, and thumped her forehead against the wheel. And to make things even more complicated (not that helped was needed in that field)?

She was becoming increasingly attracted to him.

Him! Bruce Wayne! The man who was attempting to thwart her efforts to achieve a real job! Never mind that he was a good dancer, or had a rakish grin, or had hair that had the tendency to curl into his eyes . . .

_Oh my god, _she all but wailed in thought, _did I just call his grin 'rakish'? 'Curl into his eyes'? Am I in reality or a crappy two dollar paperback romance novel?_

To her left, the patchwork messenger bag – Ronnie had picked it up for her at a street market in Madrid – thrown onto the passenger seat began vibrating urgently. The opening strains of the _1812 Overture_ floated through the layers of papers, pens, chapsticks, and various cards to various organizations she rarely visited.

One person that could be. She'd assigned the overture to James Salamone's office; after dragging Ronnie to _V for Vendetta_ the previous year, Audrey had related the wrinkled and bitter head of the Hartford Fund to the villainous Chancellor of what was now her favorite movie.

Choices, choices. The last thing Audrey wanted to do was discuss plans for turtles – privately, she was deathly afraid of the damn things – with _James Salamone_, who had, until quite recently, been her least favorite person. Of course, upon meeting Bruce Wayne, this position was delegated to the smug billionaire.

That didn't mean that the threat Salamone posed to Audrey's mental health had lessened any.

Then again, when it came to her job, Audrey often did things she didn't want to do. Like defend turtles, while she would really rather avoid them at all costs.

Raising her head with a sigh, she dug out the phone, its silver cover dulled and covered with scratches from all the abuse she'd put it through, and flipped it open. She took a breath for stability before chirping, "Audrey McKenzie."

"McKenzie? John Salamone." Ha. As if she wouldn't be able to recognize the infuriating, gravelly tone of the man who hounded her day and night. "I want to know what you did with the summary of the Rafael report."

"I emailed it to your office before I left for Christmas vacation," replied Audrey, rubbing her temples. She could feel a serious migraine beginning to push against her brow bone. No doubt Salamone's secretary – chosen more for the size of her bust than her organizational skills – had deleted it unintentionally. Again.

"Well, I didn't get it," snapped Salamone, and Audrey heard papers shuffling in the background. This was most certainly for dramatic effect; James Salamone didn't have a filing cabinet within fifty feet of his office.

"I'll resend it then." Oh yes, this was definitely going to be one hell of a migraine. Audrey thanked all the gods in the heavens for the invention of Excedrin as she dumped the contents of her bag onto the grey, faded cushion of the passenger seat, clutching the phone in her left hand. The little bottle had to be in there somewhere . . .

"That simply won't do. If it's gotten lost before, it'll get lost again. You might as well bring it to my office in person."

Audrey bit back the immediate groan. "I'm in Connecticut."

Success! Her eyes triumphantly lit on the white bottle buried under a collection of video rental cards, and she pulled it free. Her cell phone nestled between her ear and shoulder, Audrey tugged at the top of the miracle medicine.

"Antonio Rafael wants that report yesterday," continued Salamone, bowling over her objections. "I leave the office at five. I want you to hand that report over to me _personally_, McKenzie."

As the phone at her head clicked to signify Salamone had ended the call without her consent, she jerked open the lid of the Excedrin bottle to reveal a single pill at the bottom. Groaning, Audrey popped it in her mouth, and swallowed dryly. She tossed the empty bottle, as well as her cell phone, on the top of the pile in the passenger seat.

Savagely turning the key in the ignition, Audrey shifted to first gear and swung out of the parking lot, spewing gravel into the faces of the disapproving flannel-clad pilots. She had five hours to return home, drive to the New Haven station, catch the earliest train to Gotham, and hand-deliver the summary to James Salamone, devil incarnate.

Knowing him, he'd leave fifteen minutes early just to spite her.

One hour home . . . two to print out the report and drive to New Haven . . . another two for the train . . . and at least thirty minutes to fight her way uptown to James Salamone's office.

That added up to . . . Audrey calculated frantically . . . over five hours.

Damn.

She opened her cell phone and dialed her parent's house. "Mom, can you do me a favor? James Salamone wants me to hand-deliver the summary for the Rafael report. Could you turn on my laptop and print it out?"

"Of course, darling."

"Thanks Mom." She was about to hang up the phone when she heard dry sobs echoing hollowly in the background. "Ronnie's not still hung up on Bruce, is she?"

"Bruce?" inquired her mother sharply. "I thought this was about Jamie loosing her the Milan show."

Oops.

"Yeah, it's because it's the same week that she plans to have the wedding," lied Audrey fluently, her migraine increasing to epic proportions. "Bruce refused to reschedule."

"Sure." Even the static of horrid highway cell phone reception couldn't mask the disbelief weaving through her mother's voice.

Audrey thrust her heel on the brake as a small imported car jerked in front of the pickup, squealing on the icy patch and all but toppling off the road. "Learn to drive!" she yelled at the brunette hunched at the wheel, who rejoined with a rude gesture immediately followed by a mime that implied that Audrey should turn off her cell phone.

"Audrey?"

"I'm fine, Mom. Someone cut in front of me. I should probably get off the phone. Give Ronnie a hug for me, and print out that report, all right?"

"Bye."

"See you soon."

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Audrey leapt out of the pickup and sped across the gravel, narrowingly avoiding being clipped by the stationary black car that Bruce had left behind for Ronnie's use. The trip from Weston Field had been increased by an hour, due to a patch of black ice that greedily ate up half the freeway and then scattered bouts of heavy snowfall. She'd had her mother buy a train ticket for her online; she had forty-five minutes to make the usually one-and-a-half hour trip.

She skidded into the living room to see a satchel, inches thick, on the mahogany table at the bottom of the stairs. Her mother and Ronnie, the latter's eyes still rimmed in red, emerged from the kitchen as she made to escape.

"Sorry, no time to talk, gotta run!" Audrey turned tail and bolted, leaving the front door swinging open behind her. It wasn't until she'd leapt into the pickup, deposited the report on the seat already laden with the contents of her bag, and made to close the door when she realized she'd been followed by her younger sister.

"Audrey?" asked Ronnie in a voice that warbled audibly, waving a single key on a lime-green key ring. "The last train tonight leaves a five-forty because they're doing construction on the line." She thrust the brass key into Audrey's hand, frozen as it extended to snap shut the car door. "Stay at Wayne Manor."

"_What?_" choked out Audrey.

"Please," begged Ronnie, now clutching her sister's closed fist, eyes imploring. "I just want to know . . . if he feels bad. About what he did. About how he lied to me."

Blood thrumming to the point of annoyance in her eardrums, Audrey braved a glance at the LED clock on the dashboard. She now had to compress the trip into thirty minutes. Her sister was begging her to do something, no doubt important, but all Audrey could concentrate on was the nerve endings in her brain fizzling away into nothingness.

"Of course," she replied.

"Thank you," gasped Ronnie, letting go of Audrey's hand to throw her arms around her sister's neck. It was then Audrey's nerve endings stopped fizzling, and she realized exactly what she had just agreed to. Ronnie was already closing the door for her with a pathetic grin, and she didn't have the heart (or patience) to retract her accord.

Sighing furiously, Audrey reversed and peeled out of the driveway like a slingshot, her sister's blue-kimono-wrapped form standing out against the grey of the house. She furiously threw the key down on the top of the mountain accumulating on the passenger seat.

Another night spent in the _glorious_ company of Bruce Wayne.

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Bruce swept – well, it was really more of a dignified hobble – into the entrance hall of Wayne Manor via the library. He'd been out scouring the streets for four hours, and as of yet there'd been no sign of the Toupee.

Yes, his newest nemesis was named after a hairpiece.

As he hobbled through the darkness towards the kitchen, he mentally ran through Gordon's description. _Double homicide, grand theft auto, burglary_.

Awful his name might have been, but the Toupee was climbing his way up the darker social ladder of Gotham. He'd robbed five banks in two days; an estimated seven-point-three million dollars worth of diamonds were missing, and Bruce's instincts were telling him that there was a reason the Toupee was targeting diamonds.

A nefarious reason.

Not doubting that his instincts would eventually return to haunt him, Bruce entered the kitchen. The light over the stove was left on, courtesy of Alfred, and underneath was a wooden tray, carrying a few protein bars, an apple and a grey-painted ceramic pitcher of a nasty-looking lumpy green drink.

Bruce greedily poured himself a glass and downed it in a single breath, before placing the narrow glass back on the counter. The remainder of the kitchen was shrouded in the sort of darkness that lighting effects people on movie sets always seek to achieve. Not really wanting to gaze at the rest of the achingly boring kitchen, Bruce turned to look out the window.

There wasn't all that much to see usually, and tonight was especially difficult. Snow was falling in thick white clumps the size of couch cushions. The tennis courts, pool, and greenhouse were invisible behind the thick sheets of ice and snow tumbling from a blackened sky.

The weathermen were gleefully predicting that the storm would continue all weekend, inciting blackouts all over Gotham.

There was a vague outline of something in the middle of the small parking lot – intended for the maids and cleaning people that visited once a week – and as Bruce squinted, he saw that it was a pickup truck. Light blue.

Whirling around, Bruce saw evidence of his guest that he had previously missed on his single-minded mission to drink something. An eerily familiar fleece-lined leather jacket hung on the hook that usually housed Alfred's aprons.

A pair of brown boots by the back door.

Bruce had seen those boots before. Right before their owner had upended a cup of boiling hot coffee on his head.

He pushed away from the counter and took time to notice a lime green key ring on the normally impeccable countertop. That was Ronnie's. But Ronnie didn't wear fleece-lined leather jackets or her sister's burly brown boots.

She wore Prada, not L.L. Bean.

Bruce stormed past the main staircase and around to the small cluster of guest rooms on the first floor. If Audrey McKenzie _was_ visiting Wayne Manor, Alfred would have put her in the Blue Room.

He peeked in the Yellow and Burgundy Rooms first, but they were empty. Not dusty – as if Alfred would have allowed a speck of dust to enter onto the grounds – but the beds were tightly made, and no personal effects littered the bureau tops or closets.

When he slammed open the door of the Blue Room, the first thing he saw was a patchwork messenger bag thrown haphazardly on the bureau top to his left, contents spilling onto the pine surface.

Next was a head of brown hair, curly to the point of tangled, attached to a lump burrowed under the covers. "What are _you doing here_?" demanded Bruce upon sight of this brown head. Audrey was quite possibly the only person he knew who took so little care of her hair.

"Mmphg."

"**_What are you doing here_**?"

"If you value your life, you'll keep your voice down." She sounded like she was in an extreme amount of pain.

"Hangover finally hit?" asked Bruce nastily, leaning on the doorframe. As the light spilled over the handmade white-blue quilt that was the reason for the name of the Blue Room, Audrey pulled the covers over her head until all that was left was a curl of brown against the white pillow.

"For your information," she replied, voice muffled, "I'm suffering from the worst migraine that's ever been recorded by mankind, unable to medicate myself because it's midnight and my bottle of Excedrin is empty."

As his eyes shifted to the spilled stuffing of her bag, he spied a bottle of Excedrin, cap nonexistent, lying on its side. He noted that her voice sounded strained and high-pitched, and perhaps that was why he momentarily forgot that he was supposed to be enjoying her misery.

"Wait a second," he said, and returned to the kitchen medicine cabinet, which housed more painkillers than Gotham Regional Hospital. Buried in the back of the second shelf from the top was an unopened bottle of Excedrin Migraine Headache. He peeled off the wrapping, took out four of the long, narrow white pills, and poured a glass of lukewarm tap water.

Audrey hadn't removed the quilt from her head when he returned, perching on the edge of the bed and holding the glass and pills in front of him as a peace offering. "Here," he said softly, and she carefully inched down the covers, suspicious golden eyes, surveying first his face and then the contents of his hands.

The quilt was thrust away, and Audrey palmed the haze of hair in front of her face as she reached for the medicine, ignoring the glass and dry swallowing the pills, grimacing for a moment before settling back against the pillows.

Bruce politely waited twenty minutes before grilling her, sitting on the edge of the bed in silence, watching her as she watched him, her eyes loosing their glaze as her pain depleted. "And for the third time: what are you doing here?"

"I had to hand-deliver a report to James Salamone," replied Audrey, her voice settling back from its high-pitched squeal to a more tolerable, scratchy timber. She sounded like an old record, occasionally bumping on syllables and loosing them, only to return with more strength. "I missed my train, and rather than wait an hour for another, I drove. Missed him by a few minutes. Ronnie asked me to stay the night here" – she paused for a millisecond before blazing on, obviously not wanting to elaborate – "and I'm doing so, and will deliver the report to Salamone tomorrow morning."

"Tomorrow morning," pointed out Bruce, "is Saturday."

Audrey let out a groan, lifting her hands to her face and massaging her temples. "God, this is why I hate migraines. I can't think properly."

"Or," added Bruce, unable to resist, "dress properly. I see you've neglected to change to meet your boss."

As if for the first time, Audrey peeled her arm away from her body to look at it with narrowed eyes. "Oh god," she finally said. "I forgot that I'm still wearing these."

She tugged at the purple top – emblazoned with the picture of a large yellow rubber duck – and belatedly turned bright pink. "Could this day get any worse?"

At that moment, the lights in the hall flickered twice before going out completely, leaving the pair in total darkness.

"My guess," grinned Bruce wryly, "is yes."

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So . . . what on earth am I going to do with my two main characters (who are delving deep into their romantic/emotional psyche) left with naught but a few candles in a big 'ole house?

Let's think . . .

But if you want to find out the old fashioned way . . . you could review. 'Cuz then I'll write the next chapter and POST IT!

AHHHH!


	6. The Guest

Disclaimer: Do you want to know something _really _pathetic? The woman? Who shows up at the end of the chapter? I don't even own _her_. That's right.

**Author's Note:** Not that any of you will be that surprised: but I've been cured of my sinus infection, only to, and I KID YOU NOT, attempt to step into the bathtub to take a shower and stub three toes on my left foot, effectually rendering me unable to walk.

Just thought you'd like to know how much I'm suffering.

Because you all just care _so _much.

Chapter Six: A Guest

* * *

"Let me see your foot."

"No."

"_Please_ let me see your foot."

"Go away."

"Audrey, stop acting like a petulant child and _let me see your foot_. You could have broken a toe!"

"And whose fault would that be?"

"It's not my fault that you're perpetually clumsy."

"Hah!"

"Well, I didn't push you into the doorjamb, did I?"

"You blinded me with those floodlights—"

"The power went out!"

"—conveniently forgetting that I'm particularly sensitive when I'm _in the middle of a migraine—_"

"I medicated you, didn't I?"

"—thus rendering me blind—"

"They weren't that bright."

"—and sending me staggering into the doorjamb. Thanks for stopping me, by the way."

"Well, if you wanted to careen into a doorjamb, who am I to stop you? And I turned off the floodlights and lit some candles – which I hope are suitably dim, by the way – and now all I want to do is make sure you didn't break your toe."

"Grrr."

From her perch on a wicker kitchen counter stool several feet off the ground, Audrey examined the seemingly sincere man kneeling before her.

Hah.

She'd believe he had her best interests at heart the day Ronnie ate something with more than 700 calories per serving.

Grimacing – and certain she was going to regret this – Audrey extended her aching toe towards Bruce at the same moment he decided she wasn't going to cooperate and shot his hand forward to collect her foot himself.

Audrey let out a mangled shriek-slash-sob and slapped him on the side of the head with a wildly waving right hand, in the throes of absolute agony. "I knew this was a bad idea!" she proclaimed in a high-pitched voice, her toe sending throbs of sharp, stabbing pain up her nerve endings to her brain, which was already on overload due to the fantastic migraine she was already suffering from.

She attempted to yank her foot back, but Bruce had a tight latch on it, and was examining her toe carefully – as carefully as he could with two stubby candles as his only light, that is. He prodded it, no doubt not even attempting to do so gently, and Audrey was _certain_ that even though the act defied the laws of both physics and biology, her brain was going to melt out of her ears.

"Well," he finally declared, letting go of her injured foot, which she immediately tucked out of his grasp, nestled in the under-regions of the chair, "it's not broken. That's a really bad bruise, though. I'll get you some ice for that." He stood, towering over her for a moment, before adding, "I'm sure we have some painkillers that wouldn't interfere with the Excedrin."

"Thank. You," she hissed between clenched teeth, trying to keep her brain soundly between her eardrums and not splattering out onto the hand-cut wooden floorboards, which, according to the _Architectural Digest_ article she'd read last month, were imported from some famous forest in Thailand or Mongolia or such.

Hmm. Or maybe the _Architectural Digest_ article was about the main foyer, and Ronnie had told her about the wooden floors . . .

Her musings had taken her away from the still-occurring throbs that the pain receptors in her toe were shooting up her central nervous system, and she almost toppled off the chair when Bruce suddenly appeared at her elbow, holding an icepack wrapped in a blue linen kitchen towel and two small yellow pills.

"Here," he said, and he _sounded_ gentle and concerned, which made Audrey discreetly reach to check to feel if her brain was already beginning to drip, and was obscuring her eardrum. Halfway to her shoulder, she realized exactly what she was doing and extended the motion so she took the icepack and pills away from him, immediately dry-swallowing the latter and giving him a grudging smile that clearly said 'I'm-only-giving-this-to-you-to-be-the-very-_edge_-of-polite'.

Not that Audrey was often polite to Bruce Wayne. Last time she'd checked, pouring coffee on someone's head and throwing a tray full of cookie dough at them was not what Miss Manners defined as 'polite discussion'.

Surprisingly, the silence that then descended as Audrey pulled out her toe, propped it on the edge of the counter, and lightly pressed to the icepack to it, wasn't of the awkward, let's-fill-this-with-talk variety.

Perhaps it was because the painkillers were proving to have the same effect on her that two glasses of Pinot Noir would.

Bruce had settled across from her, the two separated by the island. He leaned against the sink, back slightly hunched over; his arms were folded across his chest . . . which highlighted, Audrey couldn't help but notice, a very nice pair of biceps.

She'd always been partial to nice biceps. Especially of the semi-large, well-defined variety that the billionaire whose kitchen she was sitting in happened to possess.

Feeling a blush creep its way up her chest, around her neck and over her face, Audrey stopped looking at him and concentrated solely on her foot, hoping he would attribute her redness to a flush from the heat of the thirty or so candles of various sizes that he had grouped together in the center of the island.

"Are you hungry?"

Audrey, having deemed her blush to have receded properly, looked up from her slowly aching toe to see that Bruce was now clutching the counter on either side of his body – which still did fantastic things to his upper arms – and looking at her with a questioning look.

"Well, no," replied Audrey, and then her stomach growled insistently, because apparently _it_ remembered that the last thing she'd eaten was a pretzel from a street vender outside James Salamone's office approximately thirteen hours earlier.

"Really?" grinned Bruce wryly, and he pushed off the counter – Audrey averted her eyes quickly so she wouldn't embarrass herself by ogling his biceps – to head towards the large silver refrigerator to his right and Audrey's left. "I'm guessing the blackout has another twenty-four hours in it, maybe more, depending on the storm. We might as well see what Alfred has stocked in here."

"Is Alfred here?" asked Audrey tentatively, finally thinking of the infamous butler, whom her sister actually didn't like very much. She insisted that he skulked far more than seemly for someone of his advanced age.

"Probably," absently replied Bruce as he opened the huge silver door. "One can never quite be sure about Alfred." His voice was laced with amusement as he bent over to examine the contents of a Plexiglas drawer. "What's your position on cheese?"

"I'm going for Gouda," quipped Audrey. "Though last time I checked Cheddar's pulling major double-digits in the polls."

"You aren't as funny as you think you are," said Bruce, but it sounded like he was trying to keep from laughing. "Gouda it is." He plucked something from the drawer and tossed it over his shoulder with impeccable aim in Audrey's general direction. Of course, years of being the chubby nerd in gym had Audrey cringing and ducking as the circle of cheese sailed over her head and _plunk_ed against a wall.

"You are _unbelievable_," breathed Bruce, turning at the noise.

"What?" demanded Audrey, uncurling her neck awkwardly. "Hey! You're one to talk! You chucked a round of cheese at me!"

"You were supposed to _catch_ it."

"And I suppose it was just too difficult for you to turn around and put it on the counter, instead of throwing it at me and expecting _me_, of all people, to catch it?"

"Well," said Bruce, and he could feel a grin spreading across his face, "that's a good point."

Audrey crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue.

A second later she was throwing her head back, messy curls flying in every which way as she erupted into laughter that echoed around the room and made it far brighter than it was with the pitiful collection of candles, and far warmer than it had been before.

She was cut off as music trickled into the room.

Bruce froze in the motion of walking towards her – god knows what he was doing, walking towards her with his mind utterly blank of motive – as he realized that the _Introitus _to Mozart's _Requiem_ was filling the room where previously there had only been Audrey's laughter.

His mind and heart both stopped immediately as the music swelled to the first crescendo, and lessened. Audrey's eyes were crinkling in the corner, and she was saying something about where she'd first heard it when he curtly instructed, "Stay here." She frowned, and he was sweeping past her out the door. "_I mean it, Audrey_. Stay. Here."

He followed the music up the staircase into the western wing, mind carefully blank of thought, until he was in the doorway to the master bedroom – his bedroom.

And there she was.

She was sitting facing away from him, auburn hair twisted and pressed to the crown of her head by one hand, the other with its slim, pianist fingers pushing one of his mother's hairpins into the knot of smooth hair.

"Hmm," she said. "Imagine seeing you here."

It was surreal enough – _her_, of all people, sitting at the vanity he had bought for Ronnie a few months previously, which she almost never sat at, and only used to deposit jewelry and the occasional hairpiece, and she was there, where Ronnie never was, using his mother's hairpins, which to his knowledge no one had used in twenty years, and the portable stereo perched on the edge of the vanity table, pouring out _Requiem_, which he had tried very hard not to listen to in the past two years – that he leaned casually against the doorframe, hands stuck in the pockets of his pants, and replied:

"Sarcasm doesn't become you."

Her eyes met his in the mirror of the vanity, and she held them steady as her fingers plucked the second hairpin by the pearl set at its end. "Sarcasm is like the color black. And I've always been of the impression that I look rather stunning in black."

She was right, of course.

"You'd look better in orange."

She smiled a smile that was more of a light curl of the corner of her mouth as she turned her face slightly to profile and spoke into the soft curve of her elbow, "Tsk tsk. Is that anyway to treat a guest? Implied threats?"

Her accent hadn't changed much. Still smoothly, perfectly British, crisp on each word, as if she were in a Jane Austen film. So utterly cliché, and so utterly her.

"You're not exactly welcome."

"Well," she said, and returned to surveying herself in the mirror, "we'll have to remedy that, won't we?" She lifted her chin slightly, examining a profiled cheekbone. "I can be _quite_ the addition to the household."

She froze. It wasn't as if previously she had been moving, but everything in her demeanor stilled, and when her voice emerged it had chilled and yet still managed to sound brightly engaging. "Bruce, dear, introduce me to your guest."

He all but leapt upwards, hands flying out of his pockets to see Audrey standing behind him, body slightly tilted to the right, off of her hurt toe. She seemed so lost with her hair drowning her, eyes dazed, mouth for once not fixed in a smirk, and the ridiculous duck shirt that had twisted, and was now exposing a large oval of her left neck and collarbone that was so white as to be obscene, and he wanted to strangle her for not listening to him. "Go back to the kitchen."

"Bruce," she taunted from behind him, voice an edge harsher than it had been before. "You're being rude. _Introduce us_."

Audrey's eyes were glazed – obviously some sort of combination of painkillers, Excedrin, exhaustion and hunger had rendered her slightly loopy – and she tilted dangerously to the right as she attempted to see around Bruce into the bedroom. "Hmm?" she asked, and her shirt exposed more of her shoulder to the point it was annoying Bruce for some completely _irrational_ reason.

"You heard your delightfully ineloquent friend, Bruce." She had risen from the table, and his head whipped around as _Introitus_ moved into _Kyrie_, and she stalked closer. Her dress, black of course, was light and clinging, with golden embroidery at the hem and neckline. He took time to notice that she had removed his mother hairpins so her auburn hair shimmered its way down her back, before noting that she was closer to Audrey than he liked, and _dammit that ridiculous duck shirt was dipping again_.

He pulled one of his button-down sweaters off the hook on the door and wrapped it around Audrey's shoulders, no longer wanting to see the framed oval of porcelain white skin, and he turned her around towards the kitchen, and pushed her in the small of the back. "To the kitchen," he hissed, and she swore violently, because he had managed not only bang her injured toe but tangle her feet in the hem of the too-long cotton pants

Vaguely reminiscent of a load of bricks, she fell to the ground with a surprised _whoosh_ of air forcing itself out of her lungs. Not really all that surprised, Bruce reached forward and forcibly lifted her to her feet, and then propelled her towards the kitchen before she could get enough air back in her lungs to protest.

Apparently his force had been enough to confuse her because she disappeared, face scribbled with surprise, around the corner. Upon being assured that she was, in fact, going to the kitchen and wouldn't return, Bruce turned back to the auburn-haired woman behind him.

She said, with a little self-satisfied smile (something he would have called a smirk before he met Audrey), "Now that doesn't look _anything_ like the dashing engagement photo of you and your fiancée, Bruce." She was teasing him, and Bruce could feel the remaining shreds of dignity holding his temper together fizzle out completely.

"I don't know what you're doing in Gotham, and seeing how this is _you_ I'm going to find out eventually, but let's get one thing clear: you stay _away_ from Audrey, you understand me? You go near her and our past or not I will kill you."

"Ooh," she teased, lips twitching. "Still subtle, I see." She paused one of her perfect, delicate pauses. "Last time I checked, the love of your life is named 'Veronica', Bruce."

It was enough to have him freeze and repeat what he had said in his mind. As he did so, she leaned forward, brushing against him very, very gently and almost as if she wasn't doing it at all.

"I'll give you this much: when I want you to know what I'm doing in Gotham, you're going to know. Not before."

She turned, deliberately swirling her dress so her perfume rose in the air, its musk heavy and unmistakable. He'd once found it alluring, but at the moment it was just an annoying distraction.

And then she was gone. She must have left the stereo, because the Mozart soared onward, but Bruce didn't take the time to note how she had gotten past the alarms and cameras and detectors because he was already halfway down the hall, trying to make sure that Audrey had made it back to the kitchen without falling down a flight of stairs or tripping and knocking her head on some priceless piece of art, or anything else potentially fatal that she could have done souped up on painkillers.

When he made it to the kitchen, most of the candles had dribbled out, and he was vaguely aware that Alfred was going to kill him because wax was all over the granite countertops; he was too busy to care, however, being mostly aware that Audrey had managed to survive the journey back, and was sitting under the lip of the island, knees under her chin, fast asleep.

* * *

WELL.

Who's the auburn-haired woman?

Go on, try and guess.

I doubt any of you will get it, so to throw you a bone, I'll give you a clue: she actually exists in the Batman universe, and (although I made the red hair/rest of her appearance up) is connected to someone from _Batman Begins_.

Good luck.

In the mean time: I know I'm evil! And that I took forever!

But I love you! Thus I gave you something like . . . three lines of them doing something other than fighting. I kid you not! Look hard, tilt your head to the left and squint your right eye, and you can see it.

Anywho:

REVIEW!

Hhehe. That rhymes.

. . . pause . . .

Okay, someone needs to get me off painkillers.


	7. The BatCave

Disclaimer: No, I don't own _Batman Begins_. Nor do I own Christian Bale. Do you think I would be writing this if I had Christian Bale and his biceps?

**Author's Note:** Hello everybody! Sorry this took so long to load: I kept on having to try and find a natural niche for all of this to happen, so I had to do a lot of revising.

Reap the benefits of my OCD-ness!

**Second Author's Note**: Alright, because Christmas is a few weeks away, I decided to get my ass in gear, and finish up this chapter.

**Third Author's Note: **But before you venture out into the great unknown, be aware of this: my universe is completely _Batman Begins_-canon, and because Bruce is engaged, it doesn't really fit in with the rest of the Batman universe. Thus, I can happily throw out ALL those stuffy old movies, and keep solely my own imagination.

I'm warning you, that way when I describe the Bat-cave at the end of the chapter, you all don't blink your head a few times, then go "HUH?"

Aren't I sweet?

**Fourth Author's Note:** Right. Thanks for the reviews!

Chapter Seven: The Bat-Cave

* * *

"Bruce Wayne: mild-mannered billionaire . . . or winged avenger?" 

Musing aloud, Audrey drew the tip of her finger across the closed top of the pitch-black piano before her. It was dustless, as were most things in Wayne Manor, but she got the impression that neither Bruce nor her sister spent much time playing. After all, her sister wouldn't go near a piano with a ten-foot pole . . . and Bruce didn't seem the musical type.

When she had reached this assumption, Audrey had no idea.

"Or is he both?" added Audrey thoughtfully, returning to the subject at hand.

She'd yet to breach the subject of Bruce's dual-identity with him personally, and she wasn't exactly looking forward to the task of actually speaking to him. For one thing, her memories of the night before consisted solely of a flying round of cheese and a mass of straight red hair held up by pearl hair pins.

And for another . . . she'd woken up this morning curled under her kitchen counter, wrapped in a knitted afghan, looking directly at the tip of his shoe. Luckily, he was fast asleep, and therefore didn't see her quickly pull herself off the floor, smoothing her hair as she attempted to ascertain if she had done anything very embarrassing the night before.

All she had come up with was cheese and hair.

Wanting to gather herself into some semblance of order before confronting Bruce, she fled the kitchen in search of her bag, where she could find some peppermints to cure her morning breath and a comb for her ratty hair.

Instead, however, she'd gotten horribly lost, and eventually found the semi-abandoned library, tucked into a corner in what she had guessed to be the southwestern corner of the sprawling manor.

And there it was: an absolutely _beautiful_ piano and it took Audrey the greater part of three seconds to remember that she hadn't played in ages. She was moving towards it before she even knew was she was doing, and now was attempting to control herself.

"Batman," she reminded herself quickly, snatching fingers from the piano.

"Talking to yourself?" Audrey didn't whirl around, but she was surprised enough to jump a little. She took in a deep breath, and then calmly turned to see Bruce standing in the doorway, hair slightly mussed.

_. . . hair that had the tendency to curl into his eyes . . ._

"_I _didn't hear anything," she replied. "Maybe you should get your ears checked."

"I think my ears are just fine, thank you," he said, walking into the library. "I suppose you'll want to talk about this, won't you?"

"Yes." Audrey didn't even attempt to be covert. "I suppose I do."

Bruce sighed, his nostrils flaring, and stuffed his hands into his pockets. "What do you want to know?" He walk-shuffled to one of the bookshelves so he wouldn't have to look at her. "Why did I become Batman? Why didn't I tell Ronnie sooner?" He laughed mirthlessly. "Why do I dress up like a giant bat?"

Before she could stop herself, Audrey was saying, "Actually, I want to know who the red-haired woman in your bedroom was." Bruce froze in the process of running his finger down the spine of a copy of _Don Quixote_, stunned that she could even remember that, as drugged as she had been.

"Someone from my past," he replied, yanked back his finger, and turning to face her. He leant his body against the bookshelves to his back. "I didn't expect her to show up in Gotham." Here he looked a little frustrated with himself, as if it was his fault that the strange woman had appeared.

Then again, considering how little Audrey knew of the subject, perhapsit _was_ his fault.

"Was that an attempt to close the subject?" demanded Audrey, plopping herself down on the piano bench. "Because that has to be the most pathetic attempt I've ever seen." She did a little backward leaning of her own, still a little tired, and landed her elbows with a clang on a random set of keys. They jangled loudly, off-key, and she quickly sat up, grimacing.

"I suppose it was," replied Bruce, with a grin. Devastatingly rakish, Audrey noted dully. It went with the hair nicely.

Ignoring a spark igniting in her stomach, Audrey turned pressed her fingertips to the ivory keys. "I'm a lobbyist, and I would hardly be good at my job if I gave up that easily. I want to know how you intend on keeping my sister safe and flying around the streets of Gotham at the same time."

"I wouldn't have asked Ronnie to marry me if I thought she would get hurt by being with me." Audrey snorted, and although Bruce couldn't see her smirk, he could hear it through her voice.

"You spend every night chasing down beasties; how many have gotten close to realizing your identity?" She ended her question with a harder note, a smidge of concern bleeding into her harsh words.

"I'm better at what I do than you think I am."

"Everyone has off days."

"So far I think my track record speaks for itself."

Audrey counter-attacked. "Then who's the redhead?"

Bruce sighed, and ran his fingers through his hair almost angrily. "I _told_ you, she's someone from my past."

"Is she dangerous?"

"Did she look all that dangerous?"

"Answer the question. I may be able to accept that you love Ronnie, but I'm going to make sure you aren't putting her life on the line. Do that with your own; fine, it's your life. My _sister_, my _baby sister_, is another matter. Does Red know that you're Batman?"

". . . yes."

"Is she a beastie?"

". . . yes."

"Does she know about Ronnie?"

". . . yes, I believe she does."

Fingers trembling slightly, Audrey pressed two keys on the piano softly. "Is Red the jealous type? Would she be mad that you're getting married?" Part of Audrey was angry that Bruce had done this, entreated on her private life, made her sister fall in love with him, and made her loose control of the temper that she guarded so carefully. Another part, meanwhile, was cowering in a corner, fearing that something might happen to Ronnie or the rest of her family.

"Talia isn't the type to enact revenge. She'd attempt to seduce me herself, instead of hurting Ronnie." His voice softened. "Don't worry; your family is safe." Faintly wondering how he managed to both assuage her fears and make her decidedly uncomfortable, she began to press keys on the piano at random, hardly noticing when Bruce lost his balance as the wall behind him began to shift.

"Hey!" he cried, and Audrey whirled around to see self-contained billionaire Bruce Wayne tumbled head-before-heels through an opening in the bookshelves. There was a clang as he hit in head on something doubtlessly made of steel, and Audrey winced sympathetically.

"Secret passageway?" she asked, standing, regaining her voice. "That's really too cliché. I would've expected something a little more dignified from the richest man in Gotham." As Bruce, all flailing limbs, attempted to right himself and the large lump on the back of his head, she allowed herself a little giggle and amended, "Well, perhaps not from the richest man in Gotham who dresses like a giant bat and fights crime."

"I knew the bat thing would come up eventually," he muttered under his breath, gingerly reaching up to press the egg-sized lump on the peak of his head. "And could you have been luckier? There's something like a five hundred to one chance that someone randomly guessing would come to that combination."

"Hmm. Obviously you've never had a psychotic piano teacher. I had to do opposite C minor scales every day," remarked Audrey, deciding to be merciful and reaching out to grasp his hand. "Oomph. All that flying around and you can't even pick yourself up off the floor?" She allowed herself a large smirk.

"Opposite C minor scales?" asked Bruce, using her as leverage.

"Yeah. You know, C, C, D, B, E, A, F?"

"Er."

"I'll take that as a no," replied Audrey, huffing. She now had both hands wrapped around Bruce's wrist and was attempting to use the carpet as a buffer for her feet. She grunted, her feet slipping on the doubtlessly priceless Persian, and she fell onto Bruce with an audible 'thump'.

"Hmph!" Air was exhaled out of his lungs with a whoosh. "Thanks for all the help," he wheezed once he'd regained his breath.

"Don't go there," warned Audrey, her threat lessened by her position in his lap, her small body magnificently dwarfed by his. "You really don't want to. Many have gone before you, and faced true peril."

This, of course, was too much for him to resist, especially when combined with the reappearance of her signature haughty smirk. "What?" he asked, returning a smirk of his own. "Remark on your amazing ability to loose your footing?"

"All right," declared Audrey, narrowing her eyes. "You asked for it." A second later her hand was darting out and numerous, very expensive volumes were dumping themselves on his aching head.

"Hey!" he exclaimed for the second time in five minutes. "What do you think you're doing?!"

"Punishing you," she huffed, having to stretch to reach additional books. "You went where I told you not to, and now I'm—"

She was cut off as there was an ominous creaking, and the platform behind Bruce dropped away. With a shriek, Audrey felt the billionaire beneath her give way, and her stomach in her throat, she hurtled down into the dark recesses of Wayne Manor.

She noticed, for a blinded second, that there was a book on the control-booth-esque machine in one corner – the sort of large, inches-deep volume that was part of a set of encyclopedias – pressing down on a series of buttons, but she was too busy clinging to the nearest stable object, in fear for her life.

With a bone-jarring thud, they landed.

Audrey was wrapped around Bruce like an octopus, her arms clamped around his neck; her eyes were squeezed shut, pressed into the curved place where his collarbone met his neck. "Are we dead?" she asked in a whisper, after a moment of silence that was lacking in proper explosions or funny-smelling smoke.

Bruce began to laugh, and the vibrating of his chest where it met hers had her eyes open in seconds, and she carefully detaching herself, so as to remove any more embarrassment for the way they had been intimately locked together.

"It wasn't that funny," hissed Audrey, belatedly smoothing down her hair once she was free and moving away. "How was I supposed to know that Wayne Manor had all sorts of interesting little additions?"

Bruce still laughed, and huffing, Audrey turned around to see where they were.

"_This_," she finally asked, after a moment's silence, "is your secret hide-out?"

"Yes," replied Bruce.

"What, are you adverse to a decorating scheme? Couldn't find a designer who had experiences with dark and dreary?" Audrey wrinkled her nose. "I thought Batman was all high-tech and gadgety." All she could really see were a few square lumps only slightly paler than the surrounding darkness, and a wardrobe, where no doubt the infamous Bat-suit was stored.

Bruce stood gingerly, old aches reinventing themselves in new bruises, and slapped his hand on a button a foot above Audrey's left shoulder. There was a _buzz_ of electricity, and lights flooded the previously dank cave. "_This_," he announced, unconsciously leaning over her shoulder, "is the Bat-cave."

It was decidedly more impressive that a few lumps and a wardrobe.

Having trouble peeling her jaw off the floor, Audrey shuffled into the Bat-cave, eyes flickering from side to side. To her left was row upon row of helmets, guns, bat-shaped-throwing-thingys, and various other gadgets, and extended at least ten feet wide and nine high.

To her right were a collection of three Bat-suits, hanging in their cases with helpful fluorescent wall-lighting positioned as if highlighting a work of priceless art. Meanwhile, in front of her was a collection of computer screens, monitors, towers, tables, and other mechanical devices that she would have trouble identifying a use for.

But what finally caught her eye were not the weapons, the computers, or the costumes. Behind the information center was a large screen, and under that was a bumpy lump, covered by tarp and sitting there, vaguely unremarkable.

It was a car, and Audrey made a bee-line for it. Bruce still had his hands in his pockets, checking the generator that powered the lights down in the cave, but not in the house, and when he turned to see what the lobbyist was up to, she had vanished.

He heard a whoosh, and the sound of something hitting the ground, and when he whirled around to see what had fallen, he saw Audrey was standing in front of the car, hand to her mouth, the other clutching the tarp. "It's _gorgeous_," she said, almost to herself. "Admittedly, it has nothing on Bond's Aston Martin, but it's got a rugged thing going on."

"You like cars?"

Audrey was almost getting used to Bruce's annoying tendency to appear out of nowhere, and she hardly twitched when his voice came from over her left shoulder. "I don't know all that much about them," she admitted, "but you don't have to be a painter to like art museums, right?"

"I suppose," replied Bruce, a bit amused by her analogy. Also, it was ten o'clock in the morning, and she had yet to throw something at him, so he was this close to declaring the day a success. "You know," he continued after a moment, "this is hardly the most interesting car I have." He grinned as Audrey tilted her head upward to look at him, yellow-brown eyes spread wide. "Come and see my garage."

_You know_, mused Audrey as she dragged him to the service elevator, _he's not that bad when he smiles_.

* * *

So yes, all of you who guessed Talia al Ghul as my villainess are correct. Ding ding ding! Three hundred points and a life-sized gummy Bruce for you! 

Seeing as how I don't read that many other _Batman_ fics, I wasn't aware that she was such a popular figure. But I'd already added her into my plot, so I decided that I might as well be cliché and keep her there. She fits in nicely with the scenery.

_**This public service announcement comes to you from the Gotham Bureau for Fanfiction Safety:**_

_Warning: some authoresses may resort to violent activities if their stories are not reviewed. Please review all stories you read, and keep the authoresses happy! This for your own safety. Thank you.  
_


	8. Tears and Threats

Disclaimer: I'm too tired to make up something witty (a week spent in the hypnotic backwoods of Virginia will do that to a person) – so suffice it to say that I DO NOT OWN.

**Author's Note**: You have no idea how sorry I am for how long this took to write.

There was school, then I'm attempting (badly) to write a novel, and really I'm sooo sooo soooo terribly sorry, and if you're still reading this I applaud you.

**Second Author's Note:** Alright, so I've found myself in something of a moral quandary, because my original plot device for the future of Ronnie simply won't work, because while I wasn't looking the dang girl went and got herself a personality. And a fan base. And so now I have to rework my plot.

Thus, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the insight you never particularly wanted into the inner workings of the mind of one Veronica McKenzie.

**Third Author's Note:** One more quick thing: I have a friend who insists that _Batman Begins_ fanfictions suck. She used a few more pejorative adjectives, but that was the general message. I'm attempting to prove that it doesn't by gathering up as many _BB_ readers as I can. Be proud of your fandom!

Chapter Eight: Tears and Threats

* * *

Ronnie, from her warmed cocoon of quilted comforter and numerous patterned throw pillows, looked at her pile of suitcases at the bottom of the huge bed on which she perched. Beside her on the bedside table were the mangled remains of a formerly white travel-clock, which appeared to have suffered in its encounter with gravity and the McKenzie family rosebushes.

Her famed green irises were surrounded by a ring of red, the glorious blonde waves tangled into a mass that almost resembled that of her sisters. Her eyelids were swollen, her pale eyelashes painted a dark ochre from her tears.

_Bruce._

Not even attempting to fight the approaching wave of sobs brought on by the memory of his name, Ronnie clutched a pillow – the same striped confection she'd held upon waking her sister – to her kimono-clad chest and buried her puffy eyes into the tasseled edge.

A whole day, twenty-four plus hours, since she'd awakened her sister with her wails of misery, so certain that once again Audrey could save the day, like she had when they were teenagers and Ronnie had made a mistake liable to ruin all of her dreams. All those hours, and as of yet there had been no call from Audrey assuring her family that she had arrived safely in Gotham.

Veronica McKenzie may have tended towards selfish and ditzy, at times been demanding and a tad bitchy, but she loved her family, her sister especially. Being bitchy and selfish came with modeling just a much as a gorgeous figure, easy grace and sultry pout did. As beautiful as she was, Ronnie would never have reached the pinnacle of success, the coveted title of "It Girl", had she not been willing to elbow her opposition out of the way.

Her competitive vocation out of the equation, Ronnie would have sacrificed quite a lot of things for her family . . . and even more for Bruce. That is, had he stayed when she tearfully begged him. Had he not lied to her, falsely told her that his tri-weekly martial arts lessons were the cause of the aches and bruises she had soothed with silly kisses.

As she pounded a nearby pillow with her closed fist, a gesture reminiscent of her childhood, Ronnie realized that she had been completely cut adrift. Bruce had already become a constant in her life, and she'd intended for him to stay for years to come, decades even. She'd conjured images in her mind, backstage at runway shows, of them a few years down the road, her with a child or two – her figure still intact, of course – the huge, startling manor magically made more welcoming by the arrival of plastic toys in primary colors and children's laughter. Maybe they would even leave the manor, move into a penthouse in the city, keeping Wayne Manor for parties or summer outings.

She just couldn't stand the musty house, barely a year old and already it felt as if it withstood centuries of living. Bruce's garage full of ancient cars, ones that he never _used_. Ronnie understood the concept of having cars as status, but she didn't know why he kept them locked away, never showing them to anyone, keeping them only for himself.

She didn't particularly like his butler either – he was always skulking, always making dry comments bordering on snide. She wanted to live in a home where she could turn the corner and not find an old butler resolutely dusting a banister who would cheerfully herd her away as if she didn't live in the house, as if she was a bothersome guest that wouldn't be staying for much longer.

If Bruce really needed a butler – and she had no idea why, seeing as how Alfred appeared to almost never do anything that she expected a butler to do – then fine, they'd find someone who didn't act as if she was a stranger in her own house.

She'd relied heavily on the fact that Bruce wouldn't mind moving into the city, wouldn't care about leaving behind his secret-filled house, his unpleasant butler. She'd suggested at various times that children couldn't be raised in the huge manor with its numerous hidden alcoves and dangerous dips, and he'd always change the subject with a quick "We'll have years to make adjustments before we have children."

But she was certain – or, really, _had _been certain – that she could change his mind on that account, convince him that city living was truly the best way to go.

But, _but_ – here her lower lip trembled against the scratchy linen of the striped throw pillow, her eyes once again glossing over with a film of miserable tears – he'd lied, hadn't he? Bruce wasn't who he had always insisted he was. He was _Batman_; he had a whole secret life he hadn't wanted, really, to tell her about, and only deigned to tell her when she'd absolutely needed to know.

What else was he hiding behind that bewitching grin of his? What other secrets lay underneath the exterior he put up of the rakish, devil-may-care billionaire? Suppose he didn't want to move out of the manor! Suppose he actually like his ratty old butler with his darkly amused, silently jeering eyes. Suppose he never wanted to live in the city!

Overcome with hopelessness, Ronnie burst into another drowning wave of tears as her dreams crinkled angrily into dust and blew away out of her reach.

* * *

"_Never_?" Audrey didn't look up from her rapt inspection of the dark green hood his 1963 Jaguar E-Type Roadster, but her tone was faintly suspicious and tinged with amusement. "You do know the meaning of never, right? As in that it will not happen in all of eternity?"

"Never," repeated Bruce, attempting to keep the grin from leaking into his voice as he watched her hesitantly reached out to brush the head of the leaping silver jaguar latched to the front of the convertible before her. "I can't stand spending extended periods of time in the city. Feel as if I'm being drowned in all the smog and depression. Manor keeps me sane."

"It's not _that_ bad," argued Audrey, but he tone was absent, her heart obviously not in the contradiction. "You make it sound as if all of Gotham is like the Narrows." She moved her eyes hungrily over the interior of the car, strange golden eyes sweeping over the dips and curves of the buttery leather coating the seats. She paused for a lengthy moment, before acquiescing, "Well, maybe it's a little like that."

"Audrey McKenzie? Giving up on an argument?" teased Bruce in a tone that would have, had the conversation occurred earlier in the week, earned him a cup of coffee upended over his head.

"Even the worst lobbyists know when to strategically retreat," point out Audrey primly, straightening her back with a _crack_ as she stood to give the car a final long, devouring look. She sighed for a moment, almost inaudibly, her hands fluttering towards the deep brown leather of the steering wheel before she, with obvious difficultly, forced them to settle on her pajama-clad hips.

It was the last car in the hour-long tour, and as Bruce settled the fawn-colored tarp over the top of the Jaguar and tied it down, she looked at him with serious eyes, considering him as a large bird might consider a snake. Was her prey worth the trouble?

When he finished messing about with the tarp, the snake returned her gaze, and set about looking at Audrey McKenzie through eyes no longer tainted by sixty-seven yet unheard messages and a vague memory of her uncontrollable hair.

She may have been a mercenary when it came to her work, but with her family she exhibited a ruthless protectiveness undercut by her fierce love. She was someone who valued the fact that she kept her fierce temper guarded, who didn't like her weaknesses – her tripping on air, untamable hair, and aforementioned temper – exposed to those she considered her enemies.

She wasn't beautiful, not Ronnie's stunning, head-turning beauty, but her figure was lusher and a tad more sensual, something that he noticed she attempted to hide beneath bulky sweaters and loose slacks. From the little he could dreg from his memory, she tended towards the same in work attire, her clothing neither so spectacularly ugly nor fantastic as to warrant much notice. A woman who wanted to be taken seriously in a field that didn't take women seriously.

And, he noted, as she opened a mouth surrounded by lips that were turning blue in the cold of the garage, she was far more intelligent and talked far too much than safe for his hidden identity.

"I was distracted up in the library," she said, narrowing her eyes shrewdly, stalking towards him around the edge of the now-covered Jaguar, a movement that he would have called walking on anyone else. Obviously the large bird had deemed the snake worth the trouble. "And I want to finish our conversation concerning the current state of your and Ronnie's relationship."

Bruce had never particularly liked lawyer-speak, despite being fluent in it and its many dialects – business-speak, especially. "Seeing as," he pointed out, "it's Ronnie's and mine – in other words, not yours – I don't see how it's much of your business." He stepped back and told himself it was to allow him more personal space. Having one rather lovely but undeniably talkative McKenzie sister wandering around was trouble enough to keep his hands full. He didn't need the other very bright sister asking questions as well.

"Frankly," began Audrey in a brutal tone of finality, one that he imagined she used to hammer in the concluding point of a particularly convincing argument, "you don't have a high moral ground to perch on, do you?"

"Oh," he replied, leaning against the doorway leading to the kitchen, having given up as much ground as he was willing to secede, "and I suppose you do? The crusading big sis, ready to strike down those who hurt her little sister – even throw around handfuls of cookie dough and cups of coffee?"

She moved infinitely closer, now completely around the Jag. "I'd say that mine is a bit higher up that yours," she snapped, threading her fingers through the holes in the base of his knitted sweater, still slung about her shoulders from her brief encounter with Talia the night before. He'd begun to notice her tendency to wrap things around her fingers; hair, yarn, even the strings to her drawstring pants. "I haven't gone about lying to my fiancée, now have I?"

"You're engaged?" inquired Bruce, half-joking, half-wondering is she wasn't simply using the phrase, if she had actually found someone so enamored with her remarkable hair and startling eyes that he was willing to look past her temper and clumsiness.

"It's a turn of phrase."

She waved away his question easily, and he felt a twinge of satisfaction. Immediately, there was a swarm of guilt building up in his chest. As Talia had so eloquently pointed out, he was engaged to the other McKenzie sister.

"Yes, well," began Bruce, before realizing that he had no idea how he was going to finish his sentence. Luckily, Audrey's anger was gathering steam, and she interrupted him haughtily before his silence grew lengthy enough to become embarrassing.

"Do you really think," she demanded, almost stomping as she came closer to him, "that you can keep Ronnie safe? That by lying to her about your nighttime escapades you can keep the baddies away? Ronnie may be grown, but you and I _both_ know that she needs a little looking after."

Audrey was telling a bit of a white lie. Ronnie actually needed a lot of looking after, because Ronnie tended to follow her fantasies rather than the dictations of reality. If it weren't for Jamie, her endlessly patient and firm-bordering-on-strict manager, Ronnie no doubt would have failed at modeling just as she had at the handful of jobs she'd held before walking into Jamie's agency.

"Ronnie was doing fine before I appeared in her life," said the infernal billionaire two yards ahead of her, his huge frame thrown into relief by the white sunlight filtering through the windows in the kitchen behind him. Audrey considered pointing out that Ronnie would do perfectly fine without him then, wouldn't she, but she knew that it wasn't true. Ronnie needed someone to look after her every need – of which there were a lot – and whim – of which there was an equal number.

It was only too infuriating that she had to choose Bruce Wayne as her dashing protector in black graphite armor. "Ronnie was just about _recovering_ when you flapped your way into her life," snapped Audrey, her anger just as effective as a glass or two of Pinot Noir at making her tongue loose.

"Recovering?" asked Bruce, eyebrows folding together in confusion. "Recovering from what?"

"Another asshole," hissed Audrey, finally close enough to poke him in the chest, a spot that was level with her nose. "And guess who picked up the little pieces of Ronnie strewn about Fifth Avenue that time? The same one who's gonna be fixing her when Batman lets that near-impenetrable façade slip and give away a clue to the baddies. Only that time it's going to be _real_ pieces."

She could feel the tears begin to prick her eyes, and it only flamed her anger. Audrey hated crying; it was a weakness she despised, even more so than her temper. She hadn't cried in years, and it was a record she had no intention of breaking. Ronnie and her father were the emotional members of the McKenzie family.

Crying made her helpless, and Audrey made a habit of never feeling helpless. Living in Gotham for all of her adult life meant that she had promised herself to never be a defenseless ball of fluff if a few thugs came around looking for a good time. Ronnie, however, didn't – and never had – needed to know how to defend herself.

She flitted from impressively muscular boyfriend to leanly muscular boyfriend and back again, and once Jamie got her the first of many expensive gigs, she never ventured more than a block or two into the somewhat more unsavory neighborhood where Audrey had her apartment. While the neighborhood wasn't as bad as Ronnie or their father always made it out to be, Audrey had always been happy that Ronnie didn't wander around it by herself.

Ronnie not wandering about meant Audrey could go to sleep without worrying about her sister being mugged by a handful of muscle with more brawn than alcohol-drowned brain. Audrey was a more than apt worrier when it came to the state of health of her sister – but she could worry without breaking into tears and irreparably wounding her pride.

And Audrey knew that if she let herself cry in front of Bruce Wayne, she could never forgive herself. "I swear to God that if anything happens to Ronnie, regardless of whatever amazing skills Batman may possess, I will kill you." While hardly the most original threat she could have made, Audrey felt that it got the point across nicely.

Logic told him that Audrey couldn't have taken him in a fair fight – but experience told him that she wasn't the type to fight fair. Looking into her wide yellow eyes, her face with its simple lines that were far from overwhelmingly beautiful, so unlike Ronnie, Bruce knew that Audrey McKenzie would keep her promise.

"I won't let anyone hurt her," he said finally, and Audrey nodded once. They stood at an impasse for a brief moment, until there was a light fizz, and the overhead lights in the kitchen sizzled brightly. Bruce thought about making an overwhelmingly obvious statement about the return of the power, but he said nothing as Audrey watched him coolly.

"I have to call Ronnie," she told him, her voice solid even as he saw that her eyes were beginning to gloss.

He let her pass by him into the kitchen with no reply, but as she made for her cell phone in the Blue Room, he quietly said, "I'll drive you to Salamone's office." She paused in the doorway, nodded once, and vanished into the recesses of the manor.

* * *

It's over: the chapter I made you all wait SIX MONTHS FOR (I'm sooooo sorry for that, by the way! Please forgive me . . .)!

Anywho, please feel free to review and slam me. The good news is that I'm past the point in the crazy schedule when AP Biology rules my life . . . the bad news is that finals are in two weeks. UUNGH. Don't worry though: I'll get out the next chapter. And I swear it won't take six months (winces Just saying that makes me feel horrible . . .)!


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